A Matter of Time
by AKA Jay
Summary: After an encounter with Howlyn opens her eyes, Renee begins a journey that will take her to places she never dreamed of. And adventure/romance/seduction/suspense where the pairing is H/R, but… it’s complicated. Reviews are always helpful, as are e-mai
1. Chapter One

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A Matter of Time  
  
**Author:** AKA Jay  
**E-Mail Address:** aka_jay66@hotmail.com  
**Disclaimer:** The characters and concepts of Earth: Final Conflict belong to Gene Rodenberry, and I thank him for them. I have no right or claim to them except in fantasy form.  
**Spoilers:** The beginning of this story is set just after the episode Street Wise. After that, it gets tricky.  
**Summary:** After an encounter with Howlyn opens her eyes, Renee begins a journey that will take her to places she never dreamed of. And adventure/romance/seduction/suspense where the pairing is mainly H/R, but… it's complicated. Reviews are always helpful, as are e-mails. Glad to know there are other people out here following the twisty oddness of this season. *g*

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Chapter One

Nighttime is for resting. The darkness of the night is there to hide the sleepers and protect them from the hunters' eyes. It seals them behind walls of shadow. Nighttime is for forgetting, for sleep to steal the memories and the regrets and still the clockwork ticking of thoughts and wants and fears. Nighttime is for the innocents who hope that everything will be different tomorrow; everything will be all right tomorrow.   
  
For hunters, nighttime is just another time for hunting.  
  
And for the guilty, nighttime can be hell.  
  
There were no windows in the lair. The computer equipment that rested on every flat surface provided its own unique version of moonlight, red power buttons and blue monitor lights combining into a soft rainbow haze. Enough light to walk around by, enough for Renee to be able to see her hands where they lay in her lap, enough for her to dimly make out Street's sleeping shape on the other side of the room.  
  
Street was the reason why Renee couldn't sleep. Renee's mind was stuck in a perpetual loop of questions and doubts and recriminations with full stereo sound and DVD quality special effects. On the one hand there was the memory of Street, smiling and laughing. And on the other hand there was the memory of _Street_, black fire chasing across her eyes.   
  
And on still another hand there was the memory of hybrid after hybrid dying in front of her, eyes wide and oh-so-human in that last glimpse of life. Someone's sister-brother-daughter-lover-mother dying with Renee's knife in their heart and her face in their eyes. And she hadn't felt anything. Not any of the times she'd wiped the blood on her pants and turned away. They were hybrids. They were casualties. They were acceptable losses. They were _Street_, dying in some alley while a cool eyed stranger walked away wiping off the blood and already forgetting her face.  
  
They'd deserved more than that. Humanity deserved more than that. And the thought of how many people were going to die and keep dying on both sides made Renee feel like she'd never be able to sleep again.   
  
She knew her government too well to believe that they were going to push for a peaceful resolution and try to get Howlyn and company on the next slow boat to the Atavus homeworld, wherever that was. Human government, for all its red tape and fine print and penny counters, was based on the idea of us versus them.   
  
And if something hurts _us_ then _they_ have to pay. Simple as that. A pound of flesh, an eye for an eye and in the end all that's left are two spreading oceans of blood, one for _us_ and one for _them_, and who knows which is which.  
  
She couldn't let it come to that. She couldn't stand it.   
  
She was out the door without making a sound. Behind her, Street rolled over in her sleep and pulled the pillow close to her face.

---

"This is the last time," Renee said out loud. She finished making the portal modifications and straightened up, letting out a long breath. She was no Street, but she'd watched her often enough. This should get her to the mothership. Again. "This is absolutely the last time." she said.  
  
There were so many reasons why this was a bad idea.  
  
She activated the portal. The world lurched into blue and glowing brilliance, blinding her. She blinked, and she was on the mothership.   
  
When the Taelon's were there the mothership had been frightening and beautiful at the same time, much like the Taelons themselves. It had had a certain lightness about it, something that suggested that, although its occupants were almost certainly going to make you their slaves, there were worse places to be enslaved in.   
  
Now it was… different. It was dark enough to for Renee to have to squint and hot enough for her to be covered with a light film of sweat. More than that, the atmosphere had changed. There was something about it that made Renee's heart beat faster. It wasn't fear or nervousness; it was something about the place.   
  
This was a bad place, where bad things happened.   
  
She could feel it. Anyone would be able to feel it; even someone who didn't know about the monsters that made their home here.  
  
Renee took a shallow breath of air and stepped away from the portal, making her way deeper into the innards of the mothership. Three times she had to stop and hide until hybrids or Atavus' had passed her by. Once she was trapped in a small vent for fifteen minutes while she waited for two hybrids to finish their conversation. Her hands kept reflexively tightening into balled fists; each time she consciously flattened them out. When the hybrids left she climbed out, cramped and irritable. 

She wasn't even sure what she was looking for. Ma'el maybe. He could probably give her some more information about the Atavus homeworld, maybe even a location or a way to contact it. If Howlyn and his group had left because of a disagreement with another group, then that group was probably four million years dead by now. If so, there'd be nothing to stop them from going home.   
  
Not that Howlyn would necessarily see it that way.  
  
Renee's lips tightened. To hell with Howlyn. If she locked them all up and sent the mothership zooming off towards Atavus central on autopilot it'd be better then he deserved, better than any Atavus deserved except for Eowlyn and those like him. They might thank her for it.  
  
And while she was at it, she might wake up tomorrow with wings and a tail.  
  
She carefully made her way towards the holding cell where she'd last seen Ma'el, making sure to keep well away from any vital areas of the ship where there would be tight security.   
  
Renee turned the last corner and saw the empty cell. Either Ma'el was out for a walk again or they'd moved him somewhere else. "Damn." she leaned back and rested her head against the wall. "If I were a Taelon, where would I be?" she asked the ceiling.  
  
"Dead." Howlyn said from close beside her.  
  
Several things happened at once.   
  
Renee ducked down and away from a blow she sensed rather than saw coming. With her other hand she flipped the latches on her gun and brought it out, straightening into a shooting stance with her gun and her eyes locked on Howlyn. He met her eyes and smiled a small disturbing smile. He didn't seem to notice the gun.   
  
That smile made Renee want to shoot him. A lot.  
  
"If you were a Taelon," Howlyn continued, resting one shoulder against the wall and watching her. "You would be dead. Just like the rest of that weak breed."  
  
Something in Renee's back relaxed just a fraction. He wanted to talk. Fine. Talk she could handle. "Not all of them died. Speaking of that, where is Ma'el these days?" One corner of her mouth went up. "Have you lost him again?"  
  
Howlyn's growl was soft, tangible as a rumble in the ground. Renee shivered and held her gun more tightly.  
  
"The Taelon is confined and there he will stay. There will be no more 'escapes'." Howlyn sounded grimly determined. For a moment his eyes moved away from Renee to look past her into the cell. She took the opportunity to surreptitiously move her shoulders to ease the tension building there.   
  
"No more escapes at all?" Renee mocked, trying to keep her tone light. "Where's the fun in that?" There was enough heat in his eyes when he looked at her to make her want to be absolutely sure that she was still wearing clothing. She shifted her arm and felt the cloth of her shirt rasp against her skin. Yep. Still not naked.  
  
Howlyn couldn't have known what she was doing, but he looked amused. Like he was thinking of a joke that she hadn't heard. Scratch that. Like he was thinking of a joke that she didn't want to hear.   
  
"Aren't you going to ask me where I've put him?" He said, his voice dropping to an intimate tone.   
  
She cocked her head and took a step back. "Would it do any good?" His stillness was making her nervous. He should be pacing her, circling her, forcing her to react so she wouldn't have time to notice the vibrations in his voice. If his eyes stripped her naked, his voice rubbed against every inch of that exposed skin like rough silk. It made all the hairs on her body stand on end.   
  
"Perhaps. But that's not why you've come, is it?" His voice even softer now, tiger's roar muted to a kitten's purr.  
  
"No?" Renee said, forcing a skeptical smile on her face. "I suppose you think I'm here for… what? You? Don't make me laugh."   
  
He spoke so softly that she had to strain to hear him. "You're not laughing now."   
  
"It interferes with my aim." She sighted down the gun barrel at him, weighing her options. Shoot and run or run and shoot. Either way, it was no longer an option to stay there and listen to his voice. He was building to something, and she wanted to be safely back on Terra Firma before he got there.  
  
Howlyn cocked his head and looked at her almost shyly from under his lashes, his mouth curved. "It's been too long since we've been… together." His voice curled around the last word, tasted it, and held it a moment too long.  
  
"Forever wouldn't be long enough." Renee said, the growing twist in her stomach making her say the words more firmly than she'd intended.   
  
"Even now." He said it like a statement, not a question, his face fallen into suddenly blank lines. "Even now that you _know_ that you are mine, you still deny me." He said the words like they were broken glass in his mouth.  
  
Howlyn's hand lashed out like a snake striking and the gun skittered across the floor and hit the wall. Before Renee could breathe she was pressed against him; her arms pinned against his chest. He held her tightly to him with one arm while the other wound roughly through her hair, pulling her head to the side.   
  
He pressed her face into his shoulder and bent forward, burying his face in her neck.  
  
They stood like that for a moment that stretched into minutes. His chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm; Renee could feel his mouth pressing against the skin over her jugular vein and feel him twitch with every beat of her heart.   
  
All of her instincts told her to run. Run fast, run far. But she was afraid to move; she was afraid to do anything that could be construed as trying to get away. But even if she stayed still as a mouse it wasn't likely that he'd forget that she was there and go away. Run or hide? Wait or act? Live or die?  
  
His mouth opened against her, she felt the prick of teeth and her options abruptly narrowed. She tensed, ready to spring.

And he whispered, "I wouldn't want you any other way." And laughed low in his throat.  
  
Renee closed her eyes and let out a long breath, all her muscles relaxing so suddenly that she might have fallen if he hadn't been holding her. She pushed against his chest and managed to lean a few inches back. Howlyn raised his head and looked down at her and she could see from his eyes that he knew what she'd been thinking, knew how afraid she'd been. And he'd liked it.   
  
She set her teeth and glared at him. "I'm not yours." She said firmly, realizing too late that she sounded like she was talking to a recalcitrant puppy. "I'm never going to be yours, Howlyn. I'd die first." Down boy. Sit. Roll over. _Play dead.  
  
_He settled her body more firmly against his, pushing one knee between her legs. She gasped involuntarily, the contact knocking the breath out of her in what sounded uncomfortably like a moan. Without thinking about it she pushed herself against him, instinct driving her closer. She swallowed; her mouth was suddenly paper-dry.  
  
"Your body is mine." Howlyn said with grim satisfaction, his hand a burning presence flattened against the sensitive area at the small of her back. "If you were honest, you would already be in my bed."   
  
"That's not-" Her denial ended on a whimper as his hand slipped under her shirt, stroking her back.  
  
"True?" He finished, his eyes laughing at her. "It is." His head moved in a strangely sinuous side to side motion. She caught the flicker of his tongue and realized that he was inhaling her scent, breathing her in. The idea should have disgusted her. It didn't. She swallowed again.  
  
Howlyn's eyes gleamed. "Your dreams are mine."  
  
"Dreams don't mean anything," She said, hating the tremble in her voice. Not the image she wanted to project right about now.  
  
"What about words?" There was a sharpness to his tone that hadn't been there a second ago. She tensed again. They were getting close to whatever he'd been dancing around.   
  
"What about words?" Renee repeated warily, very aware of the small movements of his body against hers. "What words?"  
  
He let his breath out in a sigh that ruffled the hair around her face. "Don't say you've forgotten. I haven't. I've remembered for a long, long time. I've waited so long for _you_ to remember."  
  
"What?"   
  
His head dipped forward until his eyes were an inch away, his mouth all but covering hers. "These lips…" he breathed. "I remember these lips…" His tongue flicked out and touched her lower lip. Renee felt herself shudder and told herself it was fear.   
  
"I remember _you_," Howlyn watched her closely. "When you stood in my throne room three million years ago and agreed to be my mate. And my queen."  
  
Renee's brain froze even as her body went into motion. She pushed at Howlyn's chest again, and this time he let her go… almost. He kept hold of her left wrist, allowing her to go only so far before he stopped her. She paced back and forth, some part of her mind furiously, icily angry at having her own arm used as a leash. The rest of her mind was taken up with trying to decide if this was a bad thing or a very _very_ bad thing.  
  
"How long have you remembered?"   
  
"I never forgot." Howlyn said. His thumb moved in tiny circles on the inside of her wrist. "When I saw you again in the undersea craft I knew that it was you. My mate. My queen."  
  
Renee narrowed her eyes. "Stop _saying_ that! Whatever happened back then, it doesn't make me your mate! And why the hell didn't you say something about this sooner? If I'd known, I…"  
  
"What?" Howlyn said softly. "What would you have done?"  
  
She looked at him. "I don't know. Something."  
  
"I don't know what you would have done either, Renee." He smiled, and a dark warmth poured through Renee, like the heat from a black sun. "That's why I didn't tell you." He slid his hand down her arm to her elbow, drawing her closer with almost painful slowness.   
  
She didn't stop him. Not then, not when he raised her arm to his lips and gently bit the inside of her wrist so lightly that it made her whimper. Why wasn't she stopping him? It didn't change anything that he remembered. If anything, it made him more dangerous than she'd realized. For him to keep quiet about this all these months showed intelligence. And determination. Lots of determination.   
  
A scary amount of determination, focused on her.  
  
That thought brought her out of the haze long enough for her to remember that he wanted more than just a quickie in an empty cell. He wanted all of her: body, mind…. and soul?  
  
She wasn't waiting around to find out.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Renee let Howlyn draw her in closer, shifting her feet for a firmer stance and hoping he thought she was giving in. He caught her eyes and she smiled at him, putting some heat in it, seeing the sudden flare of awareness in his eyes.   
  
She leant back to bring him leaning forward. Advance and retreat, move and counter move, even now when she could still feel his lips warm against the inside of her wrist.   
  
He moved to close the distance between her, she waited one second, two, three, _pull. _He was in the middle of a step, one foot off the floor, off balance when she closed her fingers around his wrist and tugged him forward hard enough to send him falling.  
  
She was falling too, falling fast, bringing her leg up as she fell back and using the momentum of both of them as she hit him in the stomach with her foot and rolled back, propelling him over her head and into the cell behind her.   
  
She twisted to her feet and ran to the control panel, her fingers punching in the codes automatically. The barrier flashed into place with a satisfying_ pop._   
  
Howlyn was getting to his feet faster than she'd thought he would. Through the barrier, their eyes met.  
  
And Renee was off, feet making no sound on the alien floor, her arms moving, her legs a blur, her mind in chaos. Howlyn did that to her, mixed her up. When she looked into his eyes she could swear that the sky was purple and mean it. That scared the hell out of her.  
  
Renee ran.  
  
She wanted to run straight towards the portal but that would be suicide. Howlyn could easily outrun her in a sprinting contest – he was made to run. It was easy to picture his not-too-distant ancestors hunting across the dark forests of some other world, their prey running just as she was running now: heart in mouth, instinct driven. And there would be blood on the flowers and on the grass.   
  
No, there was no chance that she could outrun him. If she ran in zig zags she might be able to confuse him, maybe even lose him for a while.   
  
Renee ran through corridor after empty corridor, past console after console, until as she was passing a console it spoke to her.   
  
"Renee." It said in Howlyn's voice and it was Howlyn's face on the monitor, managing to look down on her from a height of about four feet off the floor. The sound of her name in his voice hit her like a sharp blow to the solar plexus, stealing her breath and slowing her feet. Despite the urgent shrieking protests of her mind she found herself stopping in front of the console, drawn to it as if his voice was a chain around her throat.  
  
Renee rested her arms on the surface of the console and stared down at him. "Howlyn." she said, in a voice that sounded tired even to her.   
  
He smiled, one of his heart stopping smiles with his head tilted and his mouth slightly open and his black eyes watching her like he was wondering how she'd taste.   
  
"Stop running…" he said in that lilting tone she thought of as his snake-charmer voice - slow and languid and dangerous as hell. "I want you. And you want me. I won't let you go."  
  
"Why not?" Renee said. She heard the desperate tone in her voice and forced a lighter note. "It's like the old saying says. If you want something let it go. If it doesn't come back, it was never really yours." As she spoke she was edging slowly back, moving away from the console and towards the next corner.   
  
Howlyn's growl rumbled through the speakers. Renee saw anger catch fire in his eyes and shivered, grateful for the distance between them. It was so easy to make him angry and in his anger she saw a greater threat than lust, an old and bloody urge that wanted to bring her down one way… or the other.  
  
  
  
She moved farther back, meters away from the console by now, almost around the next corner. His eyes followed her, but he didn't speak. Just watched her in that angry stifling silence.  
  
"C'mon, try it." she goaded him with a challenging smile. "Let me go. I dare you. See how far I run." Then she was off again, running towards the corner, feeling his eyes hot on her back.  
  
And turned the corner to a long corridor lined with consoles, every one of them wearing Howlyn's face and _smiling_ at her.   
  
"You've got to be kidding me." Renee said under her breath. She started down the corridor, not running now but walking quickly. It was unreasonable to feel nervous about walking past the consoles. They weren't Howlyn, they weren't going to attack her. They were just his eyes and his ears and his voice.  
  
Why did he look so calm? She didn't like it.   
  
"The time for running is over," the nearest Howlyn said with that undercurrent in his voice that made her think of dark things done in dark places.   
  
He sounded almost sorry for her, like a parent explaining to a child that they were too big to go on the teacups ride at the fair. The light caught his eyes and she hastily corrected herself – like a cat, pitying the mouse trapped in its claws.   
  
"Let's agree to disagree on that one, okay?" Renee said. The consoles rolled on in front of her.. As she half-ran, half-walked past them there were always three consoles in sight: one falling away, one just ahead and one in the distance showing Howlyn in miniature.   
  
It was disconcerting, dizzying, Howlyns all around her, surrounding her, penning her in. She walked faster.  
  
"How many times," Howlyn said, still with that cruel pity in his voice, "have I let you go? You always come back to me."   
  
"You're taking that saying too literally," Renee said over her shoulder to the nearest console. "I don't come back toyou. I come back to _kill _you. Big difference." One Howlyn fell away and was replaced with another, like a row of dominos falling, like motion under a strobe light, flashes of his mobile mouth now curving, now arching, now fully stretched into a feral grin.  
  
"You can lie to yourself, Renee…" He turned away from the camera, dark shadow falling to hide his face. "But not to me. Not now. I can still taste your heartbeat on my tongue."  
  
She could feel it too, a flutter in her throat. It's fear, she told herself. "It's hate." she told him.   
  
How long was this goddamned corridor anyway? She broke into a jog, unwilling to run with him watching her. If she ran when he wasn't chasing her it would look like she was afraid of him. She didn't want him to think that. She didn't want it to be true.   
  
His laugh came from the shadow, rich and dark and mocking. "Hate me, Renee. Fight me. Come to me with all your weapons. I'll enjoy taking them from you."  
  
Renee smiled thinly. "Thanks for the invite, but I think I'll pass. Me and my weapons are both leaving." A shadow-cloaked Howlyn fell away, an identical one rearing up to take its place. Why the hell would anyone need this many consoles?  
  
"You can try." Howlyn said, and she got the feeling he was laughing at her. She didn't like not being able to see his face. There was something nagging at her. She speeded up. The consoles started to fall away faster, one just like the other. She thought she saw the end of the corridor in the distance ahead.  
  
"I don't see you doing anything to stop me," Renee said, her breath coming fast now as she ran. Something was still bothering her. She didn't see him doing anything to stop her. She didn't – _see him._ She stopped so suddenly she almost fell and looked back. A hundred consoles, all showing the same view. No change. No movement.  
  
"Son of a _bitch_," she said with disbelief, smacking her fist down on the console as hard as she could. The painful sound echoed through the corridor.   
  
Then Renee was running in earnest, ignoring the burning in her lungs. She'd broken a bone in her hand when she hit the console and the pain hit her every time she took a jarring step, a streak of agony that was no more than she deserved.   
  
Stupid, she told herself. She should have noticed when Howlyn moved into the shadows, should have noticed when she could no longer see his face. How long had it been since she'd seen him move? How long since he switched the image to a tape?  
  
How long had he been coming for her?  
  
"Stupid," she said savagely between gulps of air. A mistake like that could have gotten her killed, might still get her caught. What was wrong with her?  
  
Now that she knew he was after her she could _feel_ him pacing her through the hallways. It was nothing she could put a name to; it was an animal's instinctive awareness of danger that lifted the hairs on her neck and made her heart beat faster.   
  
Renee ran and felt him run, felt the air displaced by his body stir against her skin as eddies stirred by the passage of a shark gliding through dark water. She felt him drawing closer, sensed triumph on the edge of his mind.  
  
She saw the portal ahead.  
  
She put on a burst of speed, her mind emptying of all thoughts except the need to go faster. The pain in her hand was a gray nothing on the edge of her consciousness. She knew without knowing how she knew that even a pause now would be fatal. She might fall beneath his claws or into his eyes, but it was death either way.  
  
Pain blurred into speed blurred into space and she was standing in the portal, her hand poised above the controls when Howlyn caught up with her. He stopped as soon as he saw her and she stopped too, her hand stopped midway through its motion by the instant and overwhelming impact of him.   
  
It was like a shock of cold water, not something she could ever be prepared for. Like coming back to the mountains after years spent in the plains and feeling a heart stopping moment of _Oh. I'd forgotten. **This**_ _is what it's like. _The sudden knowing that her memories were watered down, as pale and unreal as a candle stood next to the sun.   
  
Howlyn was as still as she was and she had the sudden wild thought that maybe she had the same effect on him. But that couldn't be true, her mind said, sealing the idea away behind iron walls. He was perverse, wanted what he couldn't have, a little boy straining to reach a bottle marked _Poison_ just because it was tucked away on the highest shelf.   
  
"You've hurt yourself," Howlyn said, breaking the silence, the odd harmonics in his voice hushed so that he sounded almost human. His eyes were on her hand, curled like a small hurt animal by her side.  
  
"It'll heal." Renee said. She thought with disgust that she sounded like she was trying to reassure someone who cared about her. Howlyn was probably sorry that he hadn't broken her hand himself. "Come to say goodbye?" She made the words unpleasant and was pleased when he responded with an equally mocking smile.  
  
"So it would seem," he said. The odd harmonics were back with a vengeance, coating the words like thick soft fur.   
  
She heard in that growl what he didn't say, that if he'd been a few seconds quicker, if she'd spent a few moments more talking to his photograph, they wouldn't be saying goodbye. There was regret there and anticipation for the next time. Renee felt it too, that stab of eagerness for the next battle, and recognized it as the same fatal impulse that drew a moth to a flame.   
  
She wasn't sure why she was still there, not pressing the buttons, except that… he wasn't chasing her or threatening her. He was just standing there. Watching her. It was ridiculous to think that it would be rude to portal out without saying anything, but she had to reluctantly admit that that was what was stopping her. Damn manners.  
  
"Well, goodbye then." Renee said, cringing at the sound of her own voice, awkward and halting as if she was saying goodbye at the end of a blind date.   
  
The knowing laughter in his smile made her want to launch herself at his throat, broken hand and all. Oh god, she was going red. This was too much. She stabbed at the console.  
  
"Until next time, Re-"   
  
Howlyn disappeared in a storm of light that blinded her and sent her back to the public portal she'd started from. It was still dark out, she noticed, mildly disorientated as always by the timeless feeling aboard the mothership. She could only have been up there a couple of hours. She rubbed a hand over her eyes and began undoing the modifications she'd made to the portal. All she wanted to do was fall asleep, on the sidewalk if necessary.  
  
She made it back to the lair on dragging feet and fell into bed fully dressed, the landing jolting her injured hand badly and sending a wave of pain that tore at the edges of her vision and swallowed her whole, dragging her down into black unconsciousness.   
  
She didn't dream. 


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**  
  
"This is the right thing to do," Renee said, leaning forward in her chair as if willing Street to understand. "You can see that, can't you?"  
  
Street nodded. She was very pale. "You've been saying that. Over and over."  
  
Renee sighed. "And you still don't believe me." She pushed herself to her feet, the sudden pressure on her injured hand making her bite back a cry. Street noticed.  
  
"Does your hand hurt?" Street asked, sounding almost relieved.  
  
"No." Renee said, shrugging off the injury. "A little. It doesn't matter." She moved around the lair in small restless movements, unable to settle anywhere.  
  
Street's eyes were fixed on her, watching her like she was a wild animal: unpredictable and maybe dangerous. "Maybe you should go back to the doctor. We can talk later."  
  
Renee turned on her, shaking her head. "Oh no. I'm not going to the doctor again, not right now. We have too much to do." Her smile was feverishly bright.   
  
Street took an instinctive step back and Renee's smile faded. "Street, what's wrong?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know." Street said with a choked laugh. "What could be wrong?"   
  
"Street…" Renee said impatiently. She moved towards her friend and Street took another step back. Renee stopped and put her hands on her hips. "Cut that out, will you?" she said with baffled hurt. "You're acting like you're afraid of me."  
  
Street flushed but still moved futher back until there was a console between them. "Well, maybe I am. I mean, you're really freaking me out here, Renee."  
  
"I'm sorry." Renee said calmly, spreading her hands out in a gesture of peace. "Okay? I'm sorry. Maybe I'm going a little too fast."  
  
"Fast? _Fast?_ Try the speed of light!" Street said. "When I got your message about Andre I thought you wanted me here as your friend, not as backup for a suicide mission!"  
  
"You're not _listening_. There's nothing crazy about this. It'll work. I know it will." Renee's eyes were distant, focused on something far away.  
  
"Yeah? _Why_? Because unless there's something you're not telling me, I don't see how it has a chance in hell!" Street lowered her voice. "Look, why don't you sit down? I'll get some hot chocolate or wine or something and we can just talk."  
  
"About what?" Renee asked. "About the mission?"  
  
Street looked at her with disbelief. "Nooo... How about we talk about feelings? _Your_ feelings!"  
  
Renee smoothed a hand across her face as if wiping away invisible tears. "My feelings aren't important right now."   
  
"Have you even cried?" Street said harshly, making the words an accusation.  
  
"Yes, I've _cried_." Renee snapped, hurt flashing across her face. "What do you think I am, Street? A robot? I've cried for all of them. For Liam, for Andre, for William... I'm tired of crying."  
  
"William? William Boone?" Street fastened on to the name.  
  
"It doesn't matter. I can fix it."   
  
"Boone's dead?" Street's eyes were very wide. She sat down heavily in a chair. A moment passed before she asked, "When?"  
  
"Yesterday." Renee said. She was bouncing a little on her toes, unable to keep still.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me?"  
  
"Because it's not going to happen. We're going to fix it. We're going to fix it all." There was fire burning in Renee's eyes, the fire of the prophet that consumes everything and leaves nothing behind.  
  
"Listen to yourself!" Street said with sudden violence, near hysteria in her voice. "Do you hear how crazy you sound? Boone is dead! You weren't even going to tell me, were you? Or were you saving it as a trump card, something you could wave in front of my face to talk me into helping you kill yourself?"  
  
"I keep telling you, I don't want to kill myself," Renee said impatiently. "This isn't about death, Street." She smiled suddenly, wide and glorious. "It's about life. It's about you and Boone and Andre and Liam and everyone else who's died because I was stupid enough to pry open that Pandora's box from hell."  
  
"This is about guilt, isn't it?" Street said desperately. "You feel responsible. It's not your fault! You've done everything you can to stop the Atavus. And we'll win in the end, I know we will. But you have to keep it together, Renee!"  
  
"But that's the point." Renee said patiently. She put her hands flat on the counter between them and leaned forward. "I haven't done everything I can to stop them. I haven't done this. And _this_," She drew in a long breath, "This is how we're going to win."  
  
"You don't _know_ that!" Street threw her hands up. "There's no way it could work. Even if you could get there, which you can't, not without me, you'd be just one person! You'd be dead in ten minutes."  
  
"Maybe." Renee conceded. "I'm not saying that it'll be easy." She frowned. "And if I have to do it without you I don't know if I can do it at all."  
  
"So don't try." Street said, perilously close to begging. "Stay here. We'll find something else. Another cure, or some other weapon!"  
  
Renee shook her head slowly from side to side, holding Street with her eyes. "Oh no. I'm going to do this, Street. You don't have to help me but you can't stop me. It's going to work. I know it. I'm sorry you can't understand."  
  
"So am I." Street said. Her hands moved on the keyboard.  
  
The elevator doors closed.  
  
Renee turned to look at them. She turned back and looked at Street. "You're kidding, right?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Renee." Street said firmly. "It's for your own good. I'm going to call Doctor Page, and he's going to come over and help you."  
  
Renee laughed. "Like he did last time? What's he going to do this time, send me to a hybrid psychologist? Maybe a weekend at a hybrid-run amusement park to relax me. That'd be a nice change of pace." Her amusement died. "Whatever he does, it's not going to change my mind. You'll have to lock me up."   
  
"I will if I have to." Street said seriously. "I've lost too many friends already. I'll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe."  
  
"Safe?" Renee repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Yeah, I'll be safe. Lock me up in a cage and when the Atavus overrun the planet I'll still be there, safe. Make sure you put a big bow on the cage." Howlyn would appreciate that, she thought with wry amusement.  
  
"That's not fair."   
  
"Nothing is."  
  
Street's fingers were flying over the keyboard again. "Let me show you something,"   
  
"Promise not to stick a tranquilizer in me if I come over there?" Renee said, only half joking.   
  
"Deal." Street said, and it didn't sound like she was joking at all.  
  
Renee came around the side of the counter and moved to stand beside Street, shoulder to shoulder. They stood there in silence for a moment; Renee looked at the screens while Street kept her eyes on her hands. There was the same background pattern on every monitor in sight, a mixture of black and white dots that looked like static.  
  
"What am I looking at?" Renee asked finally.   
  
"Look closer."   
  
Renee took a step forward and peered at the nearest screen. Close up, the pattern resembled minute white numbers and letters on a black background. Equations covered the screen from top to bottom, crawling in endless lines like tiny white spiders.  
  
"What am I looking at?" Renee said again, quietly.  
  
Street's voice was empty. "My nervous breakdown."   
  
Renee drew back and looked at her. She looked again at the screens, noticing that the pattern on each one was different.   
  
"It started after I ran away from the hospital," Street said, still in that dry dead voice. "This is what I did for the first year. This and hundreds of files just like this one. I worked on them as soon as I had enough money to buy a computer, even before I had a place to live."  
  
"What is it?" Renee asked again.  
  
"Don't you know?" Street's laugh was the sound of broken glass. She stared down at her fingers, curled on the keyboard like claws. "I thought for sure you'd know."  
  
"No."   
  
Street tilted her head to one side and smiled up at Renee, a fractured version of her pixie smile.   
  
"It's a time machine," she said.   
  
"So, y'see, I do understand," she continued. "I wanted to fix everything."   
  
"Just like you." Street said.  
  
Renee looked back up at the equations and this time Street looked too, her eyes tracking the logic behind the numbers in a way that Renee couldn't follow.   
  
Street's smile was far away and she lifted a hand to the screen, finger tracing an invisible line. "This was a breakthrough. I was so happy. I thought I'd finally found the key to understanding _why_ everything happened. Then I'd know where I fit. Why I was...the way I am. Then I could control what happened. I could even control what had happened in the past."  
  
Her hand dropped away from the screen. "I was wrong. But I didn't stop." Her eyes kept following the equations, and she tapped the down key once. Then again. The screen scrolled down, equation into equation, endless progressions of a genius brain impossibly flawed. "I never stopped." Street pushed hard on the down key and the equations started flying past, the screen a dizzy blur.  
  
"It's not the same." Renee said softly.  
  
"It is!" Street turned her face towards her and Renee saw tears in her eyes. "Don't you see it? You have to leave the past in the past." She looked at the monitors, her eyes mirroring the haze of light. "Or it'll destroy you."  
  
Renee reached out and turned off the monitors one by one, plunging the screens into darkness. The dark monitors reflected images of her and Street like funhouse mirrors.   
  
"I'm sorry, Street." Renee said carefully. She put her hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "I'd give anything to have been there for you back then."  
  
"I know." Street's hand came up and covered Renee's. She didn't look up. "But you can be here for me now."  
  
Renee closed her eyes for a beat. When she opened them the fire was banked, but still burning. "I will be. I promise. But I have to do this. For you. For everyone."  
  
"It won't work."  
  
"But what if it does?"  
  
"What if you make a mistake? What if you destroy everything?" Street sounded tired, defeated.  
  
"I won't."   
  
"You might. Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to risk it?"  
  
Renee paused for a long moment.   
  
"I'm the person who started a war," she said. "And I'm the person who's going to stop it."  
  
Renee felt Street's shoulder shake under her hand, and realized that she was laughing.  
  
"I guess that makes me the idiot who's going to help you." Street said.  
  
**** 

**From the local news section of the Illinois Journal:**

Reports are still coming in about the break in that occurred last night at the New Haven military research center. A spokesperson for the facility issued a statement denying that anything had been taken. They ask that anyone with any knowledge related to the attempted theft come forward.

**From the financial section of the New York Times:**

Renee Palmer, former CEO of Doors International, has caused a stir in the last few weeks by systematically selling off all of her remaining assets. When asked the reason behind her sudden decision to leave the financial mainstream, Ms. Palmer cited ill health.

**From the headlines of the Inquirer:**

STRANGE ACTIVITIES SIGHTED ON EASTER ISLAND: WERE THE ATAVUS' THE MODELS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS STATUES? PLUS: WE HAVE THE EXCLUSIVE STORY OF THE SEX-CHANGE OPERATION THAT ROCKED HOLLYWOOD! ALL INSIDE!

**From the front page of the Edmonton Gazette:**

SCIENTIST FOUND - Arthur Voight, noted expert on Taelon weaponry, was found last night after a three day search. The acclaimed scientist disappeared on Wednesday, two hours before he was scheduled to give a speech at the ongoing conference. Three separate terrorist groups claimed responsibility. Mr. Voight was eventually found in a public portal station. In his statement, he declares that he "bears no ill will towards his abductors." Why he was taken remains unknown. Police are still investigating.

**From the personal correspondence of Hubble Urich:**

Excerpts from a letter from James Taylor, acting head of the CIA:  
  
Isolated news reports...profilers see pattern... Something big is happening... Will continue to research.

**From the personal correspondence of Juliet Street:**

To: Renee Palmer  
  
We're ready.   
  
It's time.


	4. Chapter Four

Note: Yes, it's late. I'm sorry. I stored a copy of it on my D: drive and didn't stop to think about how I'd actually get at it once my C: drive had been reformatted. Bright, eh? *g*

**Chapter Four**

****

The light from the portal died as abruptly as a candle going out. Renee waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she started walking.   
  
The heat was as awful as she'd remembered it, warm wet air like a hot towel slapped against her face. At least this time she was prepared. She'd had it up to there with being sweaty and uncomfortable while the Atavus were cool and smug. To hell with that.  
  
There was nobody in sight. 

"Wait for a few more weeks, Renee... we need to do more tests. It's not safe yet! God, if you're going to do this, at least make sure you have a chance."

Renee walked carefully down the dark corridor. The bag slung across her back was heavy enough to pull the strap hard against her chest, making stealth difficult. It weighed exactly as much as she could lift without injuring herself, no more and no less, even though that had meant she had to leave out some things. Now that there was no going back, Renee felt a stab of something like panic at the thought of the things she'd left behind. Maybe she should have waited.  
  
The first doorway was getting close. No sound from inside, but what did that mean? The aliens could move as quietly as cats when they wanted to. She flattened herself against the wall and stole a sideways look into the room. Four blank walls stared back at her.   
  
So far, so good.  
  
She hesitated at the second entrance she came to, finding it hard to match the reality of walls and doors and passages with the flat lines on her mental map. She thought that she'd come this way before, but she wasn't sure - the last time she'd been there she'd been a little too busy to stop and take in the scenery.   
  
After a moment of thought she went through the entrance and found herself at a junction of corridors, six or more passages branching away in different direction. There was a rustle on the edge of her hearing, different from the creaks and air-sighs, tightening her muscles and raising her hairs as she recognized it as a person-sound, made by something with eyes to see and a voice to cry alarm.   
  
Where the hell was it coming from? Renee turned slowly in place, closing her eyes and focusing on the sound. Sounds. More than one sound, more than one direction. Where? There?  
  
No time!  
  
Renee's eyes snapped open and she plunged forward into the corridor in front of her, gaining the corner in flying strides. She pressed her back against the rough wall and waited. Behind her the sounds were closer, recognizable now as footsteps soft as the padding of great cats. An Atavus, she thought. The footsteps stopped and she heard voices, distorted into nonsense by the echoes in the circular chamber. Two of them, she amended. At least.   
  
Time passed.   
  
She'd never thought of Atavus as chatty. She couldn't hear what they were saying but it was definitely a conversation, with the familiar-as-breathing rise and fall of statement and response punctuated by the occasional low growl of laughter. The idea bothered her. _People_ had conversations. _People_ laughed and joked and talked about their day.   
  
The voices started to get fainter and Renee realized that they were moving away. She waited until the sounds had completely died down before she walked back to the place where the corridors met. Standing in the middle of the circular area, she frowned.   
  
Consulting her mental map told her that she was supposed to take the third passage to her right when she came in. But which passage had she come in through? It was a pity, she thought darkly, that none of these advanced species had ever embraced the idea of street signs. 

"And then you take the third corridor to the right. Whatever you do, make sure you don't go down the wrong passage. Some of them lead directly to the sleeping chambers. After that, it's simple."

Renee paced the circle like a caged beast, trying to remember what the area had looked like from where she'd first entered the junction. She had to be sure. The last thing she needed was to take a wrong turn and wind up playing a reluctant Prince Charming to Howlyn's Sleeping Beauty. Her lips quirked involuntarily at the mental image the thought invoked.   
  
Three rotations later she was tired and frustrated and no closer to figuring out which way to go. If only she'd marked her path, left a trail of breadcrumbs, something, _anything_!   
  
"Fairy tales again," she said under her breath. "I'm losing it."  
  
She eventually found the way she'd come, but only by going down each corridor far enough to establish that it wasn't the one. When she finally found the right passage she marked it with a scratched x in an inconspicuous spot by the floor.   
  
That done, she headed down the _right_ corridor, the bag banging painfully against her back as she picked up speed. She didn't like how long this was taking.   
  
Renee's heart was a heavy beat in her chest and she could see the details of her surroundings with painful clarity. There was a knot growing in her stomach. She realized that her body was preparing itself for a fight and would have laughed, except that there was nothing funny about the cold readiness spreading through her blood.   
  
She forced herself to slow down to a walk and rolled her shoulders, feeling muscles tight against the bone. _Breathe._ Relax- nothing is going to happen. _Breathe_. Relax - no fighting today. _Breathe_. Relax - being too tense, too ready to attack, is not helping. _Breathe._ Relax - or you might get me killed. _Breathe_.  
  
That seemed to be working. Nothing like a healthy fear of death to quiet the nerves.   
  
Renee turned another corner, counting inside her head. That was three corners, so… she took the next right. The path was fairly straightforward from here on in. Every now and then she heard footsteps or voices but never as close as the first time.   
  
She turned the last corner and it was right where it was supposed to be. The square screen was bigger than she'd pictured it, almost as tall as she was and set flush into the wall. It was dark and still, waiting. The labels and keypad were laid out completely differently from the screens on the consoles she was used to. She had no idea how to use it.   
  
Good thing she didn't need to.  
  
Renee slid the bag off her shoulders and knelt by it on the floor. She extracted a small cloth wrapped bundle from the outside pocket and unwrapped it cautiously, exposing a metal dome as big around as her fist with a shape like a circle cut in half. She held it gingerly by its sides, careful to keep her fingers away from the optical sensor glowing like a malevolent red eye on the bottom of it. 

"You are **not **going to smash Charlotte! You must have picked her up wrong. I can get her off, but you'll have to hold still…Hold still! If you wriggle I might press the button by mistake...Ah, there we go."

The device made a soft _snap_ when Renee set the flat bottom against the smooth black glass. She let go and Charlotte, as Street had insisted on naming the demonic machine, held on. Renee took a step back, rubbing her right arm absentmindedly.   
  
Part of Charlotte's body fell away, thin metal strips tinkling like wind chimes as they hit the floor, leaving the smaller dome of Charlotte's back attached to the console with legs like metal toothpicks.   
  
Innumerable tiny wheels rolled out from under the metal dome in all directions, each one trailing a thin white mono-filament wire. The wheels rolled until they reached the edge of the screen and then turned and continued in a new direction. In a matter of seconds, the entire screen shimmered with a criss-crossed web of thread-like wires.   
  
Renee looked up and down the corridor, straining her ears to hear if someone was coming just beyond sight. This was one of the dangerous parts. No one nearby. No one coming. With any luck, no one within ten miles - this wasn't going to be subtle.   
  
She reached forward and pressed the single button on Charlotte's back, covering her eyes with the other hand.

FLASH

The white light came like a lightning strike, and Renee could feel the heat all down the front of her body. The darkness behind her eyelids flamed into red and she realized that the light was glowing _through _her hand.   
  
If she opened her eyes now she'd see the entire corridor blazing like the inside of a light bulb. If she opened her eyes now she might be able to see the smudged silhouette of the bones inside her hand. She pushed her palm against her eyes until bright spots dotted the red like stars. If she opened her eyes now, she'd be blind.  
  
The light died away so fast that Renee thought she heard a sound like the rush of air being sucked away into space. For a moment the red lingered on behind her eyelids but darker now, patches of black spreading across it like storm clouds. Then the red was just a burning memory behind the black. Renee opened her dazzled eyes and thought that there were more shadows in the corridor than when she'd closed them.   
  
Charlotte was already working. Alien text flashed past on the screen faster than any human eye could follow. A picture appeared on the screen and was gone. Another long batch of text followed, then another picture, then another, then another, flipping past like a deck of cards.   
  
Renee found it hard not to watch the brilliant images as they darted past. It was better than watching and listening for footsteps. What would she do if someone came? Better to watch for some sign that the spider was almost done and hope that soon the screen would again be dark and still and innocent. And pray that nobody came.  
  
It seemed like forever before Charlotte made a soft whirring noise almost like a satisfied purr. Renee's head jerked up in time to see the filaments retreating back inside the body of the spider. A familiar picture flashed on the screen for a moment and was gone. The screen went dark.  
  
Renee wished that she could disappear as easily. But there was still work to do, even if it was a miracle that nobody had come across her already, even if all she wanted to do was be away from the screen and the shadows. She knelt and spread the wrapping cloth on the ground beneath the screen before pressing the button on Charlotte's back twice.  
  
Charlotte crumbled like a handful of sand. Tiny pieces fell from her in showers, striking harsh metal chords where they hit the wall before falling into the muffling cloth. Thread-wires unspooled like waterfalls of silver ribbon.   
  
Renee remembered the feel of those wires buried deep in the flesh of her arm. She watched carefully and when there was nothing left to fall she gathered up the bundle and buried it deeply inside the bag.  
  
She was forgetting something.   
  
Renee frowned. She'd removed every trace of the late Charlotte, so that wasn't what was nagging at her. She turned to look down the corridor and caught a flash of light in the corner of her eye. She turned back and it was gone. She turned away again. It hovered in her peripheral vision, a mirage-web of silver hovering over the screen.   
  
Renee stepped forward and ran her fingers lightly over the screen, feeling the thin lines burned into the material by the wires. No sense taking chances. She retrieved a spray can from the bag and thoroughly sprayed the screen with the clear acrylic paint. Nobody would notice if the screen were a few millimeters thicker. She put away the can.   
  
A few seconds later she was finally walking again, feeling a weight lift from her shoulders with every step. Which was crazy, because she had so much more to do and there was a fair chance that she was going to die, but still she felt ridiculously happy to be moving. And at least she hadn't run into Howlyn yet. His radar must be off.  
  
She took the next corner a little fast and stopped inches from the Atavus. Black hair, black clothes, golden skin, dark eyes, not Howlyn. A frozen moment of inaction while in her mind's eye she was already on him, knife out, teeth bared.   
  
The moment stretched, and then she nodded. He nodded back and walked on by.   
  
She breathed.  
  
_Move_, Renee's mind screamed at her legs. They responded and soon she was moving away down the corridor as it curved away. When she looked behind her, the Atavus was already gone. Renee moved to the window and looked out.   
  
The sky was burning yellow, hot and wild and new, the setting sun like a bowl of molten gold. The dark forests stretched to the horizon and beyond, so densely packed with trees as to resemble a black sea. Dusk wind scoured her skin like hot sand and moved the treetops like waves upon the water.   
  
The city spread out below her in a tangle of arched dark metal, the windows reflecting the last rays of the young sun. Shadows were welling from the depths of the twisted city, dark and liquid, spreading out of the city as the sun slipped away and merging with the darkness of the trees.   
  
Renee blinked and clutched the windowsill, for a moment seeing the city as part of the black forest-sea, its lights those of a drowned ship far beneath the surface. She looked again and it was a city.   
  
"Home sweet home," whispered Renee. The sound of her voice fell away into the rising night.

Comments always appreciated, not to say fawned over. *g*   
aka_jay66@hotmail.com


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Renee sat on the windowsill, swinging her legs in idle circles like a child sitting on a fence. She watched the sky until the last gold drained away. The horizon was just a pale thin band dividing the darkness of the sky from the darkness of the land when she pulled her bag up on her lap and took out the black coil of rope. She pressed one flat end of the rope against the stone and tightened the "screw" until she felt it take hold.   
  
She pushed herself to her feet and turned, standing on the windowsill and facing into the corridor with the night a presence at her back. The tight black gloves were stiff and scratchy on her hands. She stood there and flexed her hands, her eyes fixed on nothingness.  
  
She stared blindly ahead for a long minute and recalled the look of the long fall of gray rock that dropped straight and smooth down to the treetops of the black forest-sea.   
  
She took the thin rope in her gloved hands and took a step backwards.  
  
Falling!  
  
Free fall, rope racing through her fingers like water, couldn't see, couldn't hear, air choking her, burning her eyes, the weight of her body an enemy, clawing at her ankles and pulling her down, pulling her faster and faster until the gray rock rushed by her face like a waterfall of stone.  
  
Renee tightened her hands around the rope and friction, blessed friction, burned her hands like acid and made her bite her lip to keep from screaming and stopped her from falling.  
  
She hung there and tried to realize that she wasn't going to die. It took a second for her brain to acknowledge that she wasn't falling, wasn't dying, wasn't rushing ever faster towards that speed which would have killed her long before her body hit the trees. She breathed out raggedly and pushed aside the half-real sound of branches breaking.,   
  
Risking a look down she saw that she was dangling a mile or more above the tops of the trees. The frictive material was only on her gloves, and without it her legs couldn't grip the rope. No help there. She could feel the rope trying to twist away from her hands, malevolent as a snake, wanting her to fall.  
  
Renee gritted her teeth and started to climb down. In the true dark of moonless night, the cliff face filled her whole world. There was nothing but gray in front of her and nothing but black above and below and behind. And the feel of the rope in her fingers.  
  
It was hypnotizing, that slow crawl down into darkness. Mindless motion, arm over arm, no room to think of anything besides the passing of the rope and the pressing need to go slowly, without dips and drops to draw anyone's eye up to where a black bug crawled slowly down the gray rock. Slow and steady, she told herself, like the movement of mountains, like a sleeping heartbeat, like the trickle of black rope through black fingers.  
  
She closed her eyes and kept climbing down. Time was a word from another language, like pain, like exhaustion.   
  
Then came the realization that there was something beneath her feet. She looked down and the darkness beneath her wasn't the tops of trees. The trees were above her. It was a few minutes before she unwrapped her hands from the rope, and a few minutes more before she stepped away.  
  
Renee looked up to where the rope twisted and moved like a living thing. She paused, watching it, before she twisted the end. She turned and walked away, hearing behind her the soft thumps of the rope falling length by length into the old leaves. It could rot there.  
  
The deeper she went into the forest, the more she realized that something was different. She hadn't expected that - a forest is a forest is a forest, filled with big-eyed woodland creatures and the things that eat big-eyed woodland creatures. On other missions she'd spent days, sometimes weeks, in forests and jungles.   
  
She knew that forests could be dangerous, hell, forests could be deadly. Forests could kill you and the carnivores would eat you from without and the parasites would eat you from within and whatever they left behind would be drawn down to feed the waiting trees.  
  
So? She asked herself. So forests were dangerous, she'd known that going in. The contacts that made her eyes black also dilated her pupils to their widest extent, so at least she was getting enough light to see where she was going and what might be coming after her.   
  
Still, it was different. And she thought she knew why.  
  
She had to walk a wide circle to come up on the city from the right direction. Back when she was making the plan she'd had a few qualms about how she was going to _find_ the city, but not anymore. Not now when she could look up at the breaks between trees and see where it glowed faintly like a fallen moon.   
  
It would only have taken half an hour to get there if she moved quickly, but she valued stealth over speed tonight. Small sounds could carry far on cool night air. Renee lifted her head and angled it, listening to the growls in the distance. Case in point, she thought. Something was hunting tonight.  
  
She picked her way carefully over a rough patch of ground and told herself that she might as well get used to the idea of not getting any sleep tonight. The plan said that she had to climb down in darkness. The plan said that she should approach the city at high noon, when most of the Atavus would be asleep. That left a lot of hours unaccounted for, hours she wasn't going to spend sleeping. Not in this forest.   
  
Still, she wasn't going to risk coming to the city during the busy hours. It would make it too hard for her to get her bearings and remember all the words and symbols she couldn't afford to forget.  
  
She was breathing shallowly through her mouth as she moved through the dark forest. The scent of decaying earth was thick on her tongue, dizzying.   
  
Her hair caught in the trees as she ducked to avoid a low branch. Renee shook her head to free it and looked at the wisps of gold still dangling from the branch. Birds would make nests from it, she thought. She shook her head again just to feel the movement of the air. She smiled to herself.  
  
Her feet were used to the uneven surface of the forest floor now and she was able to move more quickly without worrying about falling. Silly of her, she supposed. The faster she got there, the more time she'd have to wait. Still she moved faster, loping over the grass as lightly as a dancer, the bag a forgotten weight on her back.  
  
Calm settled upon her and brought back memories of other missions, other times. She remembered this feeling, when she forgot that she didn't belong there. When she stopped being an intruder and became part of it, like there had never been a time when she wasn't running through this forest as silent as any of its animals. She could run there forever, for as long as the ground was springy and there were trees to run under.   
  
She grinned as she ran.  
  
It sprang at her from the darker shadows.   
  
Flashing eyes and the impression of claws.  
  
She was on her back, crushed under its heavy weight. Her hand was warm with blood, and the warmth was spreading across her stomach. She was blind, choking, fur filling her eyes and mouth. The animal moved on top of her, struggling to reach its teeth down to her neck. She could feel its heart racing.  
  
Renee wrapped her arm around its back and squeezed, holding onto it with arms and legs and nails while it bucked and snarled and thrashed on top of her, grinding her weight into the bag under her. Something cracked beneath her and she winced. She held it more tightly.  
  
The blood was moving more slowly, the heavy heartbeat slowing down. In the pause between the beats she could feel her own heart beat, rapid as a flutter of wings. She knew the moment that its heart stopped. The animal gave one last shudder and collapsed, a dead weight on top of her and no less heavy for that.   
  
Renee's grip loosened and she ran one hand down its back, smoothing the matted fur. She pushed it away and it rolled off to lie beside her. She lay on her back and gulped the sweet air. She felt a crazy desire to laugh. It could have killed her, would have killed her, this thing from the forest that she had loved.   
  
It was funny. She should laugh.  
  
She thought with sudden clarity that it was lucky that she'd decided to wait the extra month for the suit to be finished. Without its augmentation the creature might have killed her. Or she might have still killed it but then ended up trapped under it. Not a good way to die.   
  
She turned her head and looked at the creature. It was longer than she was, she noted clinically. Must be about eight feet. One of its great paws lay inches from her face, claws still out. Long claws. She guessed from the shape of the paws that the thing had been some early variety of feline. If she got up and looked at the head she could probably confirm her guess.   
  
Maybe in a minute.  
  
The parts of the pelt that she could see were marked with scars and places where the fur had been ripped out. It had been in a lot of battles, she thought. And won all but the last.   
  
She squinted, trying to see the color of its pelt. It seemed important to remember all the details that she could. At the very least she owed it a place in her memory, just as she remembered the faces of the people she'd killed.   
  
What kind of color was that? Not brown, not black, almost blue. Blue-gray, she decided. Just like the trees and the ground and me. Of course, Renee thought, all cats are gray in the dark, and this time she did laugh.  
  
  
When she finally stood up, pulling the bag up with her, they were waiting. She felt them on the back of her neck, intruders in her forest, still her forest even if it killed her. She turned to face them.   
  
Seeing the pair standing there dappled by starlight and shade made her understand for the first time why most of them had skin the color of golden oak and hair and eyes as dark as shadow.   
  
Like white rabbits in winter, she thought with amusement. If she didn't know that they were there, if her forest hadn't sounded a wrong note like a bowstring pulled too far, her eyes would have gone right past them.  
  
Renee pulled her shoulders back and drew herself up to her full height. She put ice in her eyes and fire in her smile. She didn't speak.  
  
Neither did they.  
  
It was a long silent moment in the dark.  
  
Very deliberately, Renee brought her bloody right hand up and wiped it off against the nearest tree. Then, as she'd practiced a hundred times, she casually looked away and began to slowly clean the remaining blood from the tips of her sharpened fingernails. Not worth my time, her manner declared. You aren't even worth keeping an eye on.  
  
Now that it was actually happening, Renee found it hard to keep her heart beat even. It was one thing to know that keeping her head down limited the ways in which they could try to outdo her. It was another thing entirely to actually look away from two bristling Atavus. She carefully rubbed away a smear of blood on her right thumbnail.   
  
What were they doing? Were they moving? She thought she'd be able to feel them moving, just like she'd felt them arrive, but who the hell knew?. They could kill her before she looked up from her nails. Another bad way to die. She should make a list.  
  
"A fine kill," said a husky male voice.  
  
Renee's shoulders _didn't_ slump and she _didn't _smile.  
  
Instead, she looked slowly up from her nails and fixed the one who had spoken with a slightly bored gaze. "Yes," she said simply. "It was."  
  
Now that she was allowing herself to look at them she saw that they both looked young. In human terms, she thought, they'd probably be in their late teens.   
  
The girl made a sudden movement and Renee tensed, but relaxed when the girl just came to stand by the body of the fallen creature. She leaned down and traced one clawed finger along its side. "This is the one we were following," she said over her shoulder to the boy. "I can see where you wounded it."  
  
"Your prey?" Renee said, sounding mildly interested.  
  
"Yes..." The boy said and then looked startled. "No! It was. Yours now."  
  
"Yes." Renee said, her lips curling into the smile she'd practiced in front of the mirror. Sly, nasty, vaguely threatening. It was a pity to waste it on them. "I assume," she continued delicately, "that this was not an official hunt. I would be...sorry... to have interfered."  
  
The boy looked both flattered and frightened. On the one hand, she was implying that they looked old and strong enough to be part of the Guard. On the other hand, if he didn't correct her she might report him.  
  
"No." The girl cut in firmly. "Not an official hunt. We were just practicing."  
  
Renee's eyes dropped to where a cut across the girl's stomach was slowly healing itself. "I see." She smiled again.  
  
The boy had noticed the bag. "Are you on a journey?" He asked cautiously. It was dangerous to seem too interested.  
  
Renee swung her gaze back to him and allowed a touch of real warmth to trickle into her face. He looked comically relieved. Just like people, she thought. Unnerve them first and when you finally smile they'll do anything to keep you smiling.   
  
"Ending one," she said to him. "I'm headed for the City."  
  
His ridged brow creased and she could see him wondering what she was doing out here, a mile from any portal. She kept silent. Explaining too quickly was as bad at not explaining at all. Let them wonder. They wouldn't guess the truth.  
  
The girl cracked first. "Are you going there now?"  
  
Renee looked at her for a moment until the girl dropped her eyes. "Yes. I have fed."  
  
Ah... she could see them think. She was out here to feed. Of course. What else?  
  
Renee turned her attention back to the boy. "Thank you," she said. "For the gift of your prey."  
  
He noticeably straightened.   
  
Just a boy, Renee thought. In another time, I might have killed you. The thought made her feel strangely sad.  
  
"It has been some time since I've spent time in the City," she continued smoothly. "Since your hunt ended with mine, perhaps you will take me to the temporary chambers." Her tone made it something other than a question.  
  
The two exchanged looks and Renee almost laughed. She knew that look, remembered it from her own youth. A night sky, a quiet spot, a boy.... a hunt. How romantic.  
  
"Of course." The girl said.   
  
"Of course." The boy said a second later.  
  
"Of course." Renee echoed mockingly. She turned her back on them and started to walk towards the lights of the city. They fell in behind her.  
  
----  
  
Sorry for the delay, but you might as well know now. My computer was built using the principles of Chaos Theory. Which is to say, turning it on is like walking into a dark room when you're not quite sure whether you were supposed to go right or left at the stairwell. You might end up at your friend Sally's birthday party, or you might walk into a meeting of Cannibal's Anonymous.   
  
*blink* Hmm. Apparently my computer isn't the only thing running erratically. Sorry about that. As always, any comments are appreciated, and also greeted with loud shouts of joy.   
  
And then I do a little dance.  
  



	6. Chapter Six

Note: Yipes! Sorry for the long delay I've had this chapter finished for almost three weeks now, and I just never had enough time to sit down and do the uploading. On the plus side, this is an extra-long chapter. *g* Ah, tardiness is a virtue. 

On a related note, I'm sorry for not replying yet to those of you who've sent me e-mails. See above, although disregard the part about it being a virtue. In this case it's just plain bad manners. Again, sorry. I'm going to go through them tomorrow.

On yet another note, I watched some of the old episodes a few weeks ago. What was the point with all the tension and the scenes and the frigging telepathic dreams and then at the end is there closure? No. Is there a final scene where Renee forgives Howlyn and/or cuts his head off? No. Damn it, I demand some sort of ending to that story arc besides him dying at the hands of someone only one step above an extra and her re-enacting the Star Trek franchise with Liam "I get knocked down, but I get up again with no explanation at all" Kincaid. Grrr.

~AKA Jay

Chapter Six

Renee woke up slowly, struggling drowsily out of the depths of a dream that refused to transition easily to waking. It clung stickily to the sides of her mind like a black fog and when she opened her eyes it seemed to her that she was still in the forest, shadow-walls of trees rising above her in endless rows. 

The forest had been in the dream, she thought. Or was it another forest? It was slipping away.

She yawned widely and blinked and knew that she was no longer in the forest. The blackness around her was soft and layered when she touched it, brushing against her thighs when she stood up and stepped away.

Renee looked back at her erstwhile bed and shook her head, her lips twisting. Of course the Atavus would sleep in something like this, she thought wryly. Yulyn had called it a nest when he described it to her - she would have called it a rose. A black rose, with soft dark petals that rose in progressively higher rows spiralling out from the center. 

The petals were only there to block the light from sensitive Atavus eyes, of course. And the arrangement was a purely practical one. Right. And Batman only wore black because it didn't show the dirt. 

Renee yawned again, her eyes half-closing. 

And froze as a series of still pictures flashed across her mind like an old fashioned slide show: Click - Howlyn sleeping in a bed like this one, bare to the waist, his skin glowing rich gold against the black. Click - Howlyn awake, his head lifted, his eyes fixed on hers and that dangerous mouth relaxed into a slow inviting smile. Click - Howlyn much, much closer. Click - Her shadow falling across Howlyn's face.

Renee flinched, an instinctive body-shudder like an animal throwing off a hand, and the pictures vanished. 

A part of the dream? Maybe. An overactive imagination? Probably. Something to forget about? Definitely.

She pushed the moment aside and walked to the window. The first sliver of moon was visible above the trees, its light illuminating the dark stone walls and meagre furnishings of her room. Everything was grey or black or gray-black. No reds, no greens - what would be the point? Everything would look gray anyway in this shadowy night-world she'd brought herself to. She thought briefly and longingly of Street and her multicoloured hair. 

The knife came free from its sheath with only a slight tug. It felt almost barbaric to be holding a real knife made from metal and fire instead of nanites and Taelon energy, but there was something oddly reassuring about its weight in her hands. 

She tilted it upwards to catch the moonlight and saw in its thin (grey) blade the reflection of her changed (grey) skin and the bony forehead that was all that was standing between her and a permanent place in an Atavus freak how. She tilted it farther and it flashed (grey) light and showed her dark blue (or blue-grey or grey-grey) eyes, looking reassuringly unchanged despite all the changes to the face around them. Those were still hers, at least. 

She tugged a lock of hair down over her eyes and smiled at the sudden flash of silver. That was hers too. Street had argued for dying it black - more consistent, she'd said. Renee had refused. 

The fingers holding the lock of hair had thick, ugly nails. 

Renee tucked the knife away, checking carefully to make sure that no part of it was showing. The Atavus didn't use weapons - they were weapons. Which reminded her Renee took a deep breath and tensed her index finger, watching as a claw sprang to shining life. She turned it one way and the other, assessing its opal glow critically. Not perfect, but close enough. 

Leaning against the wall, she braced one hand against the edge of the window and held the other hand out in front of her.

Flames burst from her fingers and shaped themselves into pointed talons. At least that was what Renee assumed she would see if her eyes weren't closed. As it was, all she saw was spots. She pressed her head hard back against the wall and fisted her other hand tighter until the jagged black nails tore at her palm, the sharp sweet pains a welcome distraction from the agony screaming down her fingers and into her bones. 

It's not really hurting me, she thought. She tried to send the message to her nerves: it's not really hurting, the energy just activates all the pain nerves but it's not real, it's a trick, there's nothing hurting me, please stop, please, please pleasepleaseplease-

Renee relaxed her hand and the claws disappeared. The pain stopped as suddenly and completely as if someone had flipped the off switch. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She'd been able to hold it for longer this time. Eventually, she said to herself, I won't even notice the pain.

She took another breath and got up off the floor (when had she fallen to the floor?) and stretched, wiping her bloody palm clean on her leg. She checked through her bag to make sure that nothing was missing before she slung it over her shoulder.

There was a curtain across the doorway to her chamber. Not a door, since that might interfere with assassinations or combats. Wouldn't want to give the weak or injured a place to hide. She pushed the curtain aside with more force than was necessary and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor.

Her room was on the third 'floor' of the lodging building; a small area because she'd chosen to say that she was from a tribe that was famous for not travelling. Three stories, she grumbled silently to herself as she continued towards the exit. And no stairs. Just endlessly sloping, twisting hallways. She walked past the caretaker's door - a real door, she noticed, not a curtain - without stopping. 

She stepped out onto the street and that was so much worse. Sudden shock of _strangeness_, her whole body tensing in rejection of all the things that were alien-wrong. Blue-grey moonlight and the darker grey figures of Atavus moving through the streets. Atavus alone, watching everyone. Atavus in groups that were really packs, being watched and carefully not watching. 

And then she was out in the middle of it. Stepping into the crowd was like walking into a bad dream, a sick feeling in her stomach as she walked among the monsters and felt every touch of their eyes ring in her like a warning bell. She wanted to draw her knife and charge like a berserker into the crowd. She wanted to run back to the portal and beg Street to bring her home.

She didn't look at anyone as she walked on. Looking meant interest meant need meant vulnerability, she repeated to herself.

The layout of the city was a confusion of black lines in her mind, with a red dot marking the location of the 'bar' she was looking for. Yulyn's mother had taken him there once; Howlyn had been very angry when he'd found out where they'd been. 

Renee came to a wider street and had to fight a smile. She was heading the right way. Just a few more turns and she'd be one step closer to making contact with the lowest of the low, the most subversive of the subversive, the scum that made the rest of the Atavus look good.

She couldn't wait.

She turned again and stopped. There was a crowd lining both sides of the road, sleek black heads as far as the eye could see, just like a parade crowd but with far less talking. The eyes of the crowd were focused on a group - a procession? - moving down the center of the street: three men walking a few steps behind another man. 

A lord and his guards, Renee guessed, since they were completely ignoring the crowd. It took breeding to be that arrogant. The people watched them as they went by, and wherever they passed the crowds were silent. And still. 

Renee watched the procession for a long moment before she turned away. She'd find another way to get to where she was going. 

Something twitched inside her, a flash of warning like the sound of a floorboard creaking in an empty house.

She turned back and scanned the street. A sea of black and gold, frozen and still and - there. A ripple of movement at the back of the frozen crowd, one dark head moving along in the same direction as the procession, just a few steps ahead of it, pacing it. Stalking it.

Not my problem, Renee thought. Her eyes flickered to where the guards marched behind their lord, eyes staring straight ahead, and then back to where she had seen the movement.

"Hell." She said with feeling and plunged into the crowd, losing herself instantly in a forest of chests and backs. She pushed her way to the narrow gap at the back of the throng and spotted the back of the stalker moving away from her at speed, disappearing behind the crowd.

Calm settled over her as the map in her mind narrowed to show only a shifting triangle described by the space and angles between the hunter, the hunted and her. She walked quickly, closing the gap.

The ground was sloping upwards and Renee's heart jumped. The hunter was on the high ground now and getting higher. Tactical advantage. The crowd shifted slightly and she could see that he had stopped moving and he was farther away from her than she'd thought. She broke into a run.

He was staring out over the heads of the crowd to where she knew the procession must be, and he was pulling something out of a bag, something that caught the light.

She was going to be too late, couldn't run fast enough now because his hand was going back and springing forward and then there was something in the air, a flashing something no sooner seen than gone.

Renee looked to her left and in a snapshot glance saw one of the guards fall, the others stop. Only a second's glance because ahead of her the hunter-assassin had another deadly something in his hand and she still wasn't going to get there in time.

The knife was in her hand before she thought and as the assassin drew back his arm she threw the knife with all the strength the suit could give her.

The shiny something hit the ground with a tortured metal whine and the knife was in his arm, driven deep into the muscle and god only knew, maybe the bone.

I love this suit, she thought as she reached him and stretched out a clawed hand to grab his arm. He spun to face her faster than she'd ever seen anything move and she didn't feel the blow, it was too fast, and then there was a moment of blurred flying confusion and a great thud as she hit the wall and light flashed through her and blinded her.

She opened her eyes and the guards had reached the assassin. From her position on the ground by the wall she saw them circling him, moving around him in a tightening circle. 

The assassin had what looked like a long metal staff from somewhere and he was lashing out with it again and again ever faster until it looked like he had five staffs, ten, twenty staffs sweeping and twirling and flashing in the moonlight. 

Christ, Renee thought with disbelief. What is this, the high school drill team? She almost expected the assassin to start high stepping away down the street. His flashy tricks seemed to be confusing the guards though; instead of kicking the staff out of the maniac's hand, they were staying a wary distance away and trying to swipe at him with their claws. 

Renee kept her eyes half closed and watched as she slowly began to move herself into a sitting position. 

The guards were growling now, showing their teeth as they lashed out again and again and again and again the staff flashed dull gray in the half-light and rapped away the claws. Blood showed black on their faces and on their hands.

Renee thought that this must be how the tigers had looked the first time a human picked up a burning stick and swung it at them: baffled pain, slow circling confusion and a growing mindless fury towards the thing that had changed the rules.

She looked out from under half-closed eyes and saw that the crowd had formed a very wide circle around the fighters. There was a rumble in the air like one growl formed by a hundred throats. A crowd of monsters, she thought, staying out of a fight. What's wrong with this picture?

A louder growl and she looked back to see that the guards were becoming careless in their anger, swinging wildly, taking chances, pressing too close as they clawed the air, seemingly oblivious to everything but the desire for blood under their hands.

One went down as she watched, the staff making a hideous liquid thud when it connected with the side of his head. The other guard howled and threw himself at the assassin. Renee pressed her back against the wall and started to push herself slowly to her feet.

Then she was standing and the second guard was falling towards the ground. No time left to watch. The assassin was already turning to face her and she caught her first real glimpse of his face, laughing and exultant with the guards' blood still wet on his cheek. 

She moved towards him as he turned on her with that maniac's grin still in place, holding the bloody staff up in front of him as if he hoped she'd run into it. She stopped about three feet away from him, just out of range, and his thoughts were written clearly on his face, things like: she's afraid of me, she's just like the others, I can beat her.

Renee smiled at him. Slowly, she shook her head. The assassin's eyes narrowed, and he brought the staff around in a shining arc, showing off. He held it like he was holding a broom and she was tempted to knock it out of his hands just to watch his smile drip away. But no, let him keep his shiny toy. He was an amateur with weapons - he'd had a lifetime of practice with his claws. 

She swung tentatively at him, glared when he rapped her strikes away, growled when he caught her with a glancing blow. She hoped that she was being convincing, but it was hard to act angry when there was a small gleeful voice running like a river in the back of her thoughts and what it was saying over and over again was _I know something you don't know_.

Then finally his smile was cocky enough, his tricks were fancy enough, his guard was low enough, and the moment had come. The smile she'd been hiding burst free and _I know something you don't know_ hummed through her like an electric current.

I know, she thought, that if I step in close to you (like this) it won't matter that the staff gives you a longer reach. 

I know that you'll be startled and your hands will freeze tightly on the staff (just like that) because you don't want me to take it away. 

I know that you won't be quick enough (too slow) to stop me from grabbing the middle of the staff. 

I know that if I push hard and fast the staff will hit you in the stomach (ouch) and you'll double over.

I know that even then you won't let go of your deadly little security blanket (just a boy) and I'll have time to step behind you. 

I know that when you start to straighten I'll be able to grab the ends of the staff (mine now) and force it up and pull it back until you feel the metal cold against your throat.

She hadn't known that he wouldn't let go of the staff, that his hands would still be gripping it desperately as she pulled it hard against his throat. 

She hadn't guessed that it would be so hard to place her knee against the monster's back and brace herself so that he couldn't pull away. 

She could never have imagined the horrible sounds he'd make as his air ran out: terrible gasping broken sounds like a child crying. (forgive me)

Renee held him there while he struggled, held him when he stopped struggling, held him as he became a dead weight leaning on her and pushing her backwards. Finally his hands dropped away from the pole and fell limp at his sides. 

Renee released the pole and lowered the assassin's body to the ground. His weapon fell across his chest. She realised that she was shaking.

Curling her fingers into her palms, she drew herself up to her full height and forced herself to smile thinly as she met the eyes of the crowd. Behind her the guards were getting to their feet. 

There was a rustle in the crowd, a sub-vocal shudder as one by one the eyes turned from Renee and focused on the figure moving towards her.

The lord's face was blank. Renee dropped her gaze just in time, remembering that she should not, must not, meet his eyes. She was not this man's equal. She stared at his throat instead and tried not to think of her own throat, naked and exposed.

"Weapons." One of the guards growled from close beside her.

"Used only by the weak." His partner agreed in a low snarl from her other side.

The first guard held her knife out to her, smirking. He said nothing.

Renee stiffened. Offer help, get insults. Just what she'd expect from the Atavus. She took the knife casually and pushed it back into its sheath. 

"Are you often beaten by weaklings?" She asked under her breath.

The answer came from an unexpected source.

"No," the lord said. "They are not often beaten by anyone."

"Never." Said the first guard.

"Well. Never before." The lord said, and the calm in his voice was a terrifying thing. Renee looked down at the ground, her head bent. "And you, my unbidden protector," The way he said 'unbidden' made her shiver. "Who do you guard?" 

"I guard no one." Renee said to his feet.

She heard the smile in his voice. "Only a guard would interfere. Only a guard would risk challenge."

Her eyes darted up and then dropped. Challenge? What the hell had she done that - she let out a breath. Oh yes. Helping meant that you doubted the strength of your ally. No one helped unless asked, and asking for help was something to be ashamed of. But she wasn't dead right now because they thought -

"Yes. I'm a guard." She said calmly, trying to remember everything she'd been told about guards.

She heard a laugh behind her and a low voice said, "A guard who uses _weapons_." The crowd reacted with a rumble of discontent.

She turned her head infinitesimally and glanced at the first guard. "Is your pride worth more than your lord's life?" She put disbelief into the question. 

Another growl from the guard and she thought she might have gone too far. The lord raised a hand and the growling stopped.

"An unusual point of view," The lord said. "But I can't bring myself to completely disagree with it."

Renee relaxed a little. That was about as much as she could have hoped for. "I-" she started to say.

"Who do you guard?" The lord asked again. "Where is your lord?"

She was prepared for that. "My lord is dead."

"Unsurprising," Someone said in the vicinity of her left ear.

She lifted her upper lip in a snarl. "He died of age," she said, still keeping her focus on the lord. "His heirs released me."

"Of what tribe?" The lord asked.

"I can't say." Renee said, hoping that her answer gave the impression of deep dark secrets. 

The lord's attention seemed to sharpen. "Will there be battle if you meet again?" 

"No." 

"Then there will be no problem should they attend the meeting. Come." He turned his back on her and started to walk away.

What? Renee thought. "What?" She said.

The lord didn't look back.

"You are luckier than you deserve." Someone hissed, and she turned to see the first guard hoisting the assassin's unconscious body onto his shoulders. He walked after the lord, apparently unencumbered by the weight.

A heavy arm fell across her shoulders and she found herself being urged forward by the other guard.

"You are fortunate that our lord accepted your offer." The guard said smoothly. Renee stopped walking. He kept walking, dragging her arm along with him, forcing her to keep up.

"Wait-" she said.

"He is one of the five." The guard said, looking straight ahead.

Renee's mind blanked. "The five do not leave their castles," she said numbly. Yulyn had been very clear on that, she thought frantically. Minor lords travel, the five stayed safely in their own castles. 

"Yes," The guard said, slowing down now that they had caught up with the first guard. "But now they are here."

"_All_ of them?" She said, hearing the squeak in her voice and not caring.

"For the meeting." The first guard added.

"Perhaps it is well that you have joined us," The second guard said, his smile very white against his dark skin. "The cowards must be desperate if they dare attack one of the five. They grow insane as the time of the meeting draws closer. Who knows what they will try next." He fell silent, his eyes on his lord.

Renee felt ill. She glanced from left to right looking for a way out but saw none. The two guards marched beside her like well, like guards. And even if she got past them, she wouldn't want to bet that the crowd would stay out of it again. 

She glanced over at the unconscious form of her adversary, being lugged along over the shoulder of the guard like a sack of old potatoes. His head bounced on the guard's back with every step, his dark hair falling down almost to the ground, exposing the back of his neck. There was something there - Renee looked closer and saw a dark red marking in the shape of a circle. 

"What does that symbol mean?" Renee asked. "I haven't seen it before."

"You've been lucky," The first guard said with an amused twist to his lip. "The cowards call it a reminder mark. It shows that this one has killed in the service of his traitorous cause."

Atavus killing Atavus, Renee thought to herself. Sounds like a good idea.

"It's disgusting," The second guard said with sudden heat, looking at the unconscious assassin with loathing. "They willingly mark their body with symbols of slavery." His voice rose to a low roar. "My father died on the Journey!" 

"Calm," The first guard said, shooting his partner a warning glance. "Don't think about it now. We will never return to the home world, our lord will see to that." He jostled his prisoner roughly. "And when this one wakes, perhaps the King will allow us the honour of cutting this offensive mark from his treacherous flesh."

Renee stumbled and would have fallen if the second guard hadn't steadied her. She murmured thanks, or thought she did. The two guards continued talking; their voices were a rush of noise in her ears. There was a numbness spreading through her arms and legs, closing in on the core of her stomach where something very like pain was just beginning to make itself felt. She couldn't believe she was still breathing, still walking.

As if in slow motion her head turned to look at the body of the assassin. Hello, she said in her mind. My name is Renee. I came here to help you. 

Forgive me.

One of the guards nudged her with his shoulder. "Stand tall," he said. "We're almost to the palace."

_______  
Tell me what you think?  
Confused yet? Want me to slow it down? Want me to speed it up? Want me to introduce a cute sidekick for Renee, possibly some kind of talking alien fluff ball? Tell me. I promise nothing but I'd like to hear about it anyway. *g*


	7. Chapter Seven

**Dedication**: To Sapphira, for kindly offering to help me with my writer's block and then refraining from doing me physical harm when I told her I had the part done and hadn't posted it. She's a peach. ;-)  
  
**Author's Notes**: Yeah. Okay, I'm not a good person. You guys knew that, right? Good. I've got the next few parts of this one written out, so there shouldn't be any more long delays. Stop laughing! I can do things on time if I try yeah, I totally can't. It's sad. *g*   
  
**Part Seven**  
  
Renee walked with the guards through the silent mob. Her mind was a blur; her feelings tied up in a knot that threatened to strangle her.   
  
Her fellow guards walked on either side of her. The lord, her lord now though she didn't even know his name, was walking a few paces in front. Stretching on ahead as far as she could see was the path cleared for them by the crowd. The path was lined on both sides by tight packed bodies, walls of monsters watching them as they passed by.   
  
_I should run,_ Renee thought. But she'd also thought she should help the guards, so what the hell did she know? She felt paralyzed by indecision and every step was a tick of the clock and a chance thrown away. If she ran they might catch her, if they caught her they might kill her, if they killed her she would have traveled a million years to die in this strange place that would be Earth and it would make no difference in the end.   
  
To hell with that.  
  
Renee took a deep breath and squared her shoulders and walked on.   
  
They were almost to the Gate. Yulin had described the Gate to her and she'd seen it briefly when she was sneaking up on the city, a dark massive thing standing sentinel in front of the palace. She hadn't expected it to be beautiful, but it was. She hadn't expected it to be frightening, but it was.   
  
Almost as tall as the palace, made out of some kind of black stone roughly hewn into the shape of a great arch, the Gate glowed in the moonlight. It was all rough flashing planes and sharp shadowed edges, an architectural wonder pulled from a demon's dream. It didn't look the gateway to anyplace that Renee would want to go.  
  
Renee didn't notice the guards until she almost stepped on them. They lounged in the shadow of the Gate, ten or more darker forms within the black. They were sprawled on the grass like great cats; when they noticed the party approaching they rose, uncoiling themselves upwards in ways that would have made the best human contortionists weep with envy.   
  
"Lord Avaren," One of the Gate guards said. "We expected you."  
  
_Translation_, Renee thought. _Our spies told us you were coming. We are many, and know all._  
  
Lord Avaren inclined his head. "I'm glad that our arrival does not come as an unpleasant surprise."  
  
_Translation_, Renee thought. _We are too powerful to care who knows our plans. Attack us at your peril. _  
  
The guard dropped his eyes submissively and moved aside. The rest of the guards followed suit, dropping into place beside him to form two lines on either side of the path. Renee was pretty sure this was a gesture of respect and not a trap. Pretty sure.  
  
She followed Lord Avaren as he walked between the lines of guards and passed under the Gate.   
  
Walking through the Gate was like walking through a bad dream, a nightmare tunnel of darkness with the Palace waiting at the end of it. The doors to the palace were twice as tall as a man and ten times as wide, already standing open as if in anticipation of their arrival.   
  
If Renee wanted to run, this would be the time to do it. The Gate guards wouldn't stop her; it would probably amuse them to see the Lord deserted by one of his guards. The Lord's guards would want to chase her, but the Lord would stop them. He wouldn't want to arrive alone at the Palace. It would be a sign of weakness.  
  
Renee looked surreptitiously to her left, where the first guard was walking with his armful of enemy. His enemy, not hers. Her fault that he was captured. Her responsibility to get him out again.   
  
_All right then,_ Renee thought with a twisted inner smile, _Abandon hope all ye who enter here._ She walked side by side with her fellow guards into the Palace.   
  
The entry hall just inside the door was too big to be called large and too stark to be called grand. It was a rough cave the size of ten rooms stitched together and the ceiling was so high that the upper reaches of the room were swallowed by impenetrable shadow.   
  
Renee found herself wondering if there were warriors hidden up there in the blackness. It would be the perfect place for an ambush. She shook the thought off. Paranoia was a weakness she couldn't afford. Not when she was dealing with a species that could smell fear. If she was going to survive this trip, she had to be the person she was pretending to be. That meant acting as much like the other guards as she could.  
  
So, like them, she pulled her shoulders back, focused her eyes on Lord Avaren's back and followed her Lord as he led them down the halls. They turned a corner and suddenly everything started to look a little too familiar. They turned another corner and they were in the throne room.  
  
Renee couldn't stop herself, her head started to swivel to the right. She caught herself and wrenched her eyes to face front again before anyone could wonder why she was staring at a wall. A blank wall, an empty canvas of stone not yet filled with Nahema's frozen statue scream. One less thing to worry about: Future Renee, Past Renee now, hadn't been there yet.   
  
One less thing to worry about and a hundred left to go because the throne room was crowded with 'people' talking in small standing groups or lounging on the hard rock floor. Renee had the sinking feeling that what she was seeing here was a casual meeting of the high court of the Atavus. Once again, she had to slap down the small voice in the back of her mind that told her to turn and run.   
  
She was an Atavus and she feared no one, Renee told herself. She was a guard and she would not leave her Lord.   
  
She was a lunatic and she was going to die, the small voice screamed. Quiet, Renee told it.   
  
And then all the voices dropped out of her head and left only a rushing vacuum where her mind had been because the crowd shifted and there was a split second when she saw the other side and it was Howlyn, Howlyn was there, Howlyn was sitting on the throne, she was walking towards Howlyn.  
  
Renee's feet stopped moving but she saw with sick relief that it was okay because the other guards had stopped too, staying by the doorway while the Lord walked forward and the crowd parted to form that same pathway she was becoming so familiar with. She wondered if there was some cultural significance to the way the Atavus always formed paths lined with people. She wondered if Yulin would know. She wondered when her heart would start beating again.  
  
Okay, she said firmly to herself. You knew this was coming. You're in the palace; Howlyn is the king, where did you think he'd be? How stupid _are_ you?   
  
Pretty damn stupid, as it turned out. Because she hadn't thought about it, hadn't wanted to think about it. And now she was here and he was here and if she tilted her head to the side and looked down the open path she'd be able to see him and he'd be able to see her.  
  
"I greet you, Howlyn." Lord Avaren said formally.   
  
"I greet you, Avaren." Howlyn's voice said and Renee closed her eyes at the sound of it.  
  
Renee couldn't help herself - she had to look. Just to know if he was looking back, she had to know. She tilted her head a fraction, just a fraction. Her heart stopped beating again.  
  
Howlyn wasn't looking, that was good. Nahema was standing beside his throne. That was bad.  
  
_Damn it_, Renee thought with panicked illogic. _How many times do I have to kill you? _She moved back, out of sight.  
  
"You are strong," Lord Avaren was saying. "That is well."  
  
"You are loyal. I am pleased." Howlyn said, giving the traditional reply. He sounded a little bored, Renee thought. He must have to do this little ritual over and over again, and god forbid he do it differently with one lord than with another. That kind of routine would drive her crazy.  
  
Focus. That was what she needed right now. All right, so what did she have to avoid? Couldn't let Nahema notice her; that might change the future. Couldn't let Howlyn notice her; that might change the future.   
  
Basically, she needed to be invisible, which would be a whole lot easier if she wasn't standing next to a guy with a prisoner draped over his shoulder like a mink stole.   
  
Members of the court kept sneaking glances at them, although so far none had been bold enough to stare. If they did, Renee had the horrible feeling that she'd be expected to challenge them. One death match per day was definitely her limit.  
  
She became aware that the conversation between Howlyn and Lord Avaren had changed in tone. They sounded much more conversational now, less formal.   
  
"My tribe is healthy," Lord Avaren said. "And yours?"  
  
A courtier-Atavus walked past the guards and out of the room. Another followed.  
  
"Strong." Howlyn purred, sounding very satisfied with himself. Renee allowed herself a mental eye roll.  
  
Another Atavus walked past them and vanished into the corridors. The same thing was happening at every door. The room was slowly emptying as the Atavus slipped away. Renee felt panic clutch at her. She no longer had to tilt her head to see Howlyn; she no longer wanted to know if he was watching her. She kept her eyes on Lord Avaren's back.  
  
"How was your journey?" Howlyn asked, and Renee could tell by the sound of his voice that he was looking in her direction. _Look at the unconscious guy_, she commanded him silently. _He's the star of this show._  
  
"Eventful." Lord Avaren said with a nasty smile in his voice.  
  
"So I assumed." Howlyn said. There was a dreadful echoing quality to the words and when Renee looked up she knew that it was because the room was empty now. The crowd was gone, and Renee was alone with her Lord, the guards, Howlyn and Nahema.  
  
"I have a gift for you," Lord Avaren said. He waved his hand and the guard bearing the prisoner stepped forward. The guard carried his burden to the foot of the throne and then dropped him unceremoniously at Howlyn's feet. Kneeling, he pulled back the prisoner's hair to expose the red circle on his throat.  
  
Howlyn's growl raised the hairs on Renee's neck.  
  
"You bring an excellent gift, friend." He said, with the growl still rumbling in his voice. "I have waited long for one of these infidels to be captured."  
  
Lord Avaren smiled. "I thought you would be pleased. He is yours to end. "   
  
"Tell me," Howlyn said with a carnivore's eagerness. "How did you capture him? He is the first to be brought to me alive."  
  
Nahema had been eyeing the prisoner from her spot at Howlyn's side. Moving forward, she came to crouch beside his fallen body. She took his chin in her hands and tipped his head back, her eyes searching his face. Howlyn watched her. Renee watched him.  
  
"I was fortunate,' Lord Avaren said. "And he was unlucky. His first strike ended one of my guards, but he was prevented from launching another by the rest of my protectors."  
  
"Aaaah." Howlyn drew the word out in a way that was somehow insulting. His eyes remained fixed on the prisoner and Nahema. She stroked the prisoner's face and Howlyn growled low in his throat. "I would offer to replace your lost guard," Howlyn continued without looking away. "But I see you must now travel with four guards. The three remaining should be more than sufficient to protect you while you remain within my walls. Unless you feel unsafe - "  
  
"I do not travel with four guards," Lord Avaren broke in sharply. "I have only the three, now and always."  
  
Howlyn looked up, his eyes sharp on the Lord's face. "I see. Fortunate that you should find a replacement so soon after the loss of your guard." Renee could feel his eyes moving over her and her comrades. She stared at Lord Avaren's back. I am an Atavus, she told herself, and I fear nothing.   
  
"More fortunate than you know." Lord Avaren said, and Renee's heart sank at the boasting note in his voice. "My new guard," he continued. "Was delivered to me upon the very moment of my need. The assassin was using weapons."   
  
Lord Avaren made a subtle hand gesture and the guard standing in front of the throne pulled the bag off his shoulders, the assassin's bag, and emptied it on the floor. Metal things hit stone with an iron scream of protest. There were more of the things like throwing discs that had killed the guard, and another pole like the one the assassin had used against Renee, and smaller things like daggers. They rolled across the floor like metal marbles.   
  
Nahema picked up one of the small dagger-things and turned it over in her hands, still crouching by the body of the assassin. She cut her palm with it and watched as it healed.  
  
Howlyn remained still until the last of the weapons had clattered its way to a stop. "You were exceedingly fortunate," he finally said in a rasping voice. "The rebels who use weapons are the most cunning of their treacherous breed. This makes your gift all the more precious. You have my debt, and doubly so if you can tell me a way for others to repeat your success."  
  
Lord Avaren showed no reaction, which Renee guessed meant that he was ecstatic. Now if only he would just bow his head and leave  
  
"The rebels are not the only ones who are skilled in the use of weapons." Lord Avaren said.   
  
Renee drew in a breath.  
  
Nahema was carving patterns into the face of the assassin, small marks that healed almost as fast as she made them so that it was as if a shadowy movie drawn in blood writhed across his skin.  
  
Howlyn was intent on Lord Avaren now. "Tell me."   
  
"My new guard defeated the rebel with his own weapons." Lord Avaren said, drawing out every word. "It was as if a child fought with a warrior, so quickly did the assassin fall."  
  
Again Renee felt the butterfly brush of Howlyn's eyes across her skin. It was torture, not looking at him.   
  
"A guard?" Howlyn said with blatant disbelief. "What guard would use weapons?"  
  
There was a thin smile playing around Lord Avaren's lips. "A guard who values their lord's safety above their own pride, or so I'm told."  
  
Howlyn made a sound halfway between a laugh and a growl. "A novel view."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"Could this paragon teach others?" Howlyn asked.  
  
"If they would learn." Lord Avaren replied. Renee wanted to scream. Now she was supposed to teach the Atavus how to fight? Great. While she was at it, why didn't she just go around the planet exterminating humans herself. Save the Atavus some time.  
  
"They _will_ learn." Howlyn said. "As thanks for your service, you may present the rebel formally at the next full court."  
  
"And if he does not survive that long?" Lord Avaren asked.  
  
"Present a trophy in his place. I promise you, all will understand the import of your gift."   
  
Nahema looked up at Howlyn. "He has a pretty mouth," she said, her claws stroking the assassin's face and smearing her bloody pictures into nothingness. "Perhaps that can be Avaren's trophy."   
  
"A fine idea," Howlyn said with a growl. "Go now with Avaren's guard and take the rebel to his cell before he wakes. Tell the Keeper that his face is not to be harmed. If he complains, you can think of ways for him to amuse himself."  
  
Nahema lit up with a childlike joy that made Renee feel sick to her stomach. The guard collected his prisoner again, Nahema waiting impatiently, and the three left the room together. Renee wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.  
  
Not, she decided as she heard Lord Avaren speak.   
  
"My guards are at your disposal, Howlyn. When shall my new protector begin her service to you?"  
  
"Her?" Howlyn said.  
  
This is it, Renee thought. Not saying anything would be suspicious.  
  
(_Idon'twanttoIdon'twanttoIdon'twanttodon'tmakeme_)  
  
Renee raised her head and looked at Howlyn. "Yes." She said.  
  
And felt like she was living through the worst moment of her life all over again.   
  
It was all there; the sudden awareness a black glitter in his eyes for that split second before his eyelids dropped and transformed his eyes into dark hungry crescents. Heat visible under his skin and that twice-damned smile just starting to curl his mouth. And so much worse, the same things in her as there'd always been when she saw him. Her throat suddenly sandpaper, her heart stopped and racing at the same time, light flashing through her and between them like lightning, fire in her eyes and in his smile.   
  
_WHY?_ beat against the inside of her mind like the wings of a caged bird. Why him, why this, why always this? God, she had to stop it, she had to look away, and it was like staring at the sun.  
  
Renee breathed out, a long shuddering breath, and saw the mirror of her need in Howlyn's face.  
  
"Howlyn," Lord Avaren said again, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was standing in the middle of a lightning storm. "When shall she begin her service?"  
  
"As soon as possible." Howlyn said. His voice was like velvet; Renee thought she could bury her face in it. His eyes were still locked with hers and she thought she might die if he didn't look away. She couldn't blink, couldn't even breathe.  
  
"Excellent." Lord Avaren said. "You may go now," he said in the general direction of Renee and her fellow guard. "I will be safe enough here with the King."  
  
Howlyn's eyes flicked to Lord Avaren for a second, just a second, but it was long enough to break the spell.   
  
Renee dropped her eyes to the floor and inclined her head obediently. She followed the other guard as he turned and left the throne room, carefully matching the speed of her steps to his. It was important not to run. She could feel Howlyn's eyes on her back long after she had left the throne room.  
  
______  
End Part Seven  
*rubs hands together* Ah fun. Enough with the setup already, now we're starting to come to the scenes that made me want to write this story in the first place. Excuse me while I chuckle. Heh heh heh.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Author's Note: ** Here you go, my friends. A new chapter. Why is it so late? Uh... yeah. I've mentioned that I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, right? I forgot. But, thanks to Sapphira, Redaura, Sue and everyone else who provided a friendly and only slightly angry reminder of how tardy it was, I remembered. Thank you, angry people! If I can't have an actual memory, it's nice to know that I have people out there willing to substitute for one in a pinch. Replies to review after I've had dinner, so that my replies won't be entirely about gravy, potatoes and the pleasantness of adding one to the other. *g* 

**Chapter Eight**  
  
Renee followed the other guards as they walked away from the throne room, through the black twisting corridors and endless empty rooms until they finally stopped by a large metal door. The door stretched almost to the ceiling and was almost totally featureless, distinguishable from the rest of the wall only by the seams. Renee watched the guards closely for a hint as to what was expected of her. They didn't look at her. 

One of the guards placed his hand on a blank patch of wall beside the door. Lord Avaren, he said, and light flared from the wall and shone through his hand. The guard didn't appear to be surprised. He paused for a long moment and then said, Juin. First.   
  
He - Juin - stepped away, his brightly glowing handprint fading almost immediately and leaving the wall once again dark.   
  
The second guard stepped up and put his hand on the wall. Not in the same place, Renee noticed, but a little further along.   
  
Lord Avaren. The second guard said in the same formal tone as the first had used. Again, light sprang to life behind his hand. Again, the long pause before he said, Kairn. Second. Kairn stepped away and went to stand beside the first guard. Both of them looked at Renee.   
  
Renee's mind was racing, it was a struggle to keep her thoughts from showing on her face. The pattern was simple enough, right up until the final part. Was she the third, or the last? Or some Atavus word for closure that she'd never even heard of? She'd be expected to know. She had to get it right. She had to get it right _now_, before she made them suspicious.   
  
She walked with careful nonchalance to a spot slightly farther along the wall from where the second guard had touched. Raising her hand, she placed it against the wall.  
  
Lord Avaren. She said formally. This was the easy part. The light appeared, just as expected.   
  
What she had _not_ expected was the cold that accompanied the light; horrible searing cold that burned like fire or acid, tearing into her hand and setting every nerve to screaming.   
  
Renee took in an involuntary breath to scream, but - Mind over matter, she told herself, life over pain and they were _watching her_.  
  
she said, giving her name the twist on the end that Yulin had suggested. No time to pause now, what would it be? Third' for continuity, or last' for closure? It was hard to think through the pain. Third', Renee decided. That was the logical answer.  
  
Renee said, and stepped away from the wall. And waited as the light died away with her heart in her mouth and her hand curled hurt and useless by her side.   
  
The doors seemed almost to shiver, strange ripples moving down the metal, and a high-pitched whine emanated from within.   
  
The doors began to swing open.   
  
Last' had been right, then. It made sense - the Atavus were security mad and had to have a clear ending to their security sequences, otherwise there might be a slip up and a guard could get through that wasn't really a guard at all. It was all perfectly logical. Obvious, even.  
  
The doors were still opening, moving incredibly slowly, no doubt designed to give any people inside time to marshal their defenses. Unlike the room Renee had stayed in last night, which had had only a thin curtain for a door, this chamber was obviously designed to withstand anything short of a nuclear blast. And given the strange metal the walls were made from, even that might not be enough.   
  
Renee followed Juin and Kairn as they walked through the doorway. As soon as all three of them had cleared the threshold the doors swung quickly shut on their own, trapping any would-be attackers outside. They made no sound as they closed.   
  
The three of them were now standing in a room that was almost a square, the closest to a normal room that Renee had ever seen in an Atavus building. One wall of the square was entirely taken up by the huge door they'd entered through. The wall directly opposite the entrance door housed a much smaller metal door of the same design. To the left and right there were open doorways covered by hanging curtains.   
  
Yulin had never mentioned this. He hadn't thought it was necessary to go into details of the palace layout. Neither had Renee. So much for planning.   
  
Going purely on instinct, she turned towards the left-hand curtained doorway just as the other guards moved towards the right-hand one. Damn it, she thought.   
  
They didn't even look at her as they both walked into the right-hand room and let the curtain fall back into place behind them.   
  
Renee walked to the other doorway and pushed aside the curtain. The room inside wasn't a room at all, just a large hole carved out of the rock with both floor and walls covered with pointed outcroppings of stone. Two of the black rose beds lay by either side of the curtained door, their petals very short.   
  
Of course, Renee thought, glancing around. These must be the barracks. Beds for the guards to sleep in but not comfortable enough for dangerously sound sleep and with low enough petals to let them see every flicker of light outside their curtained door. And apparently, this one was all hers. Perfect.   
  
Renee stepped inside and pulled the curtain closed, wobbling a little as she tried to get her bearings on the rocky floor. Finally she managed to pick her way over to one of the beds and sat down heavily. She let her bag slide off her shoulder onto the ground.   
  
Renee's hand was still throbbing with pain but when she examined it for obvious signs of injury there was only a faint redness, undetectable unless you were looking for it. That was good; she wouldn't have wanted to have to explain a non-healing wound to her fellow guards.   
  
Her fellow guards. Juin and Kairn, Renee repeated to herself, trying to memorize the names. Juin was the tall one who'd been so insulting about her use of weapons. Kairn was slightly shorter, and it was his helpful' arm that had been clamped across her shoulders all the way to the palace.   
  
Judging by the little performance they'd all had to put on at the door, this must be Lord Avaren's reserved suite of rooms. That meant that the door she hadn't been through yet probably led to the Lord's sleeping quarters. He got a real door, of course. That way, he would be safe inside while his guards were conveniently placed outside to meet and greet any assassins that happened to come calling. Not exactly a room with a view.   
  
Still, at least it was relatively private. It looked like only Lord Avaren or his guards could get in, which meant that for the moment Renee only had to worry about three Atavus instead of thousands of them. Good. She could use that.  
  
Ten busy minutes later, Renee pushed aside the curtain and walked out of the room.   
  
Juin and Kairn were waiting for her, standing like still black statues in the entryway. Renee stopped walking and looked at them. They looked back. The silence stretched.  
  
They broke first, as Renee had known they would, since they were only trying to assert a tiny dominance over her by making her speak first, whereas _she_ was hopelessly confused and would stand silent until doomsday rather than risk saying something she shouldn't.   
  
We are going to feed, Kairn said, and Renee mentally classified him as the nice one.' Will you join us?   
  
Renee shook her head. I had just fed when we met, she replied, letting her tone warm to show that she appreciated the gesture. I will explore the palace. _And assess its dangers_, hung unspoken in the air between them, although _And look for a way out_ would have been more accurate.   
  
Kairn nodded, and Renee thought she detected a hint of approval in his eyes. Our Lord will probably be speaking with the King for some time, he said. He may not come here until near dawn. We will see you then.   
  
Renee said with a thin smile.   
  
The two guards left. Juin hadn't said a word. Renee made a mental note to keep a close eye on him, at least until he'd gotten over the shame of being rescued' by her.  
  
She waited a few seconds before she followed them out the door.   
  
Once Renee was in the corridors, she hesitated. All of her instincts were telling her to get out of the palace as fast as possible, if only because being in the same building as Howlyn was wreaking havoc on her nerves. On the other hand, if she had interpreted the guard's comments accurately, it looked like she'd arrived at the same time as a high level meeting was being held on the question of whether or not to stay on Earth. There had to be something she could do to tip the balance in humanity's favor.   
  
And then there was the prisoner. He was somewhere in the palace, probably awake by now, almost certainly being tortured.   
  
Renee thought about what would constitute torture for a species with almost unlimited healing powers and shivered.   
  
Whatever Renee was going to do, standing around wasn't getting it done. She set off in the direction of the throne room.   
  
The throne room wasn't that far away from their suite of room. No doubt the suites for the rest of the Five were similarly close, which should make it easier to find them if she had to. But proximity to the throne room meant proximity to Howlyn meant that she probably didn't want to hang around in these corridors for too long. Much safer to spend as much time as possible in her room behind those reassuringly solid doors.   
  
Renee stopped when she reached the corridor outside the throne room. She could see light glowing through the open doorway, so someone was in there. She leaned against the metal wall farthest from the doorway to the throne room and looked around, making a mental inventory of all the exits. One of the doors led back to the portal that had brought her there, but which one?   
  
It was very hard for her to think. She was intensely aware that Howlyn was still in the throne room, only a measurable distance and an open door away. She kept wanting to glance over and check that he couldn't see her, wasn't watching her through the doorway.   
  
I'm too far away, Renee told herself. As long as I stay on this side of the corridor, he can't see me.   
  
Are you sure?   
  
I'm sure.   
  
_**How sure?** _  
  
Not quite sure enough, as Renee found that she had to turn and look at the entrance to the throne room, because she couldn't think, couldn't find herself on her mental map, couldn't even make a guess as to which way to go until she knew once and for all that she was alone and unobserved.   
  
There was a woman standing by the entrance, watching her. Not a real woman, of course. An Atavus. With long dark hair and golden skin, looking remarkably like Judah but not Judah and also looking remarkably like every other Atavus Renee had ever seen.   
  
Renee met the woman's gaze and hoped that her own eyes showed cool interest rather than the surprise she felt.   
  
The woman waited for a long moment. Renee thought quickly. This woman was obviously one of the palace inhabitants or she would never have dared to watch a stranger so openly. Traditionally, it was the visitor who came to the inhabitant, showing a degree of submissiveness because they were in a territory that was not their own. Therefore, the woman was expecting Renee to walk over to her and make the first move.   
  
It would take more than tradition to make Renee walk over there and stand outlined in the doorway to Howlyn's throne room. She waited.   
  
Another second ticked by before the woman finally came towards Renee, moving with a liquid grace that managed to suggest that she'd been planning to make the first move all the time and was only doing so as part of a carefully plotted master plan. Renee felt like applauding.   
  
The woman said in a neutral voice.   
  
Since the other woman had made the first move, it was Renee's turn to show submission – either that, or start getting ready for another fight to the death.   
  
Rene replied, her tone bordering on cordial. Renai, Last of Lord Avaren's protectors. There. She'd given her name, her lord and her status all at once. That should show that she wasn't interested in power struggles.   
  
The other woman smiled, and Renee blinked. It was a friendly smile. Unexpected  
  
The woman – Ledah, said. First of Howlyn's Guard.   
  
Every muscle in Renee's body tightened. First of Howlyn's Guard would make Ledah First of _the_ Guard, and the effective head of all Palace security. Renee forced herself to relax, muscle by muscle, returning Ledah's smile as best as she could. No wonder Ledah had felt free to make the first move. She was second only to Howlyn in this place; she had little to fear from a struggle for dominance.   
  
I am pleased to meet you. I've heard great things of you. Renee said, feeling that that was probably safe enough. Everyone must know Ledah's name. It never hurt to throw a little flattery into the mix, too.   
  
Ledah's smile widened. Most have, she confirmed. Although few are gracious enough to mention it. I wish that I could say the same of you, but you have me at a disadvantage. Is this your first visit to the palace?   
  
You know that it is. Renee replied. Ledah shouldn't be asking her questions. Questions meant weakness. Where were the power games? Was Ledah _that_ strong?   
  
Do I? Ledah smiled.  
  
Of course you do. Renee said, teasing now, greatly daring. She could feel herself relaxing and knew that it was a mistake. It was just so _good_ to have a normal conversation with someone, even if it was entirely based on lies.  
  
Ledah acknowledged the humor with a sly grin. Of course I do, she said. I would be a sorry guard for my King if I did not make an effort to learn about his guests.  
  
Very true. Renee said. And what have you learned about me?   
  
Ledah pondered the question, tilting her head to one side in a careless gesture that reminded Renee sharply of home.   
  
Why, everything. Ledah said at last. Renee's heart skipped a beat. And then Ledah grinned and said, Everything about nothing, that is. Official facts so rarely tell the whole story, don't you find?   
  
Renee could have strangled her but managed to have only a slight edge to her voice when she said, Yes. I'm sure that the official records could tell you little about me. I have few stories to tell. My life has been a quiet one. "  
  
Ledah looked amused, no doubt entertained by Renee's attempt to make herself seem harmless. Which she actually was, Renee thought, at least in relation to Ledah's interests. Killing Howlyn or destroying the Palace weren't on Renee's agenda. Not yet.  
  
I would enjoy hearing your stories. Ledah said. It might bring life to the dull, dry facts I am obliged to read. I often think that we should record things of a personal nature as well as those things related to security. It would make my job far more enjoyable.   
  
For example, Ledah continued, her eyes drifting away from Renee to stare off into space in a way that could only be described as dreamy. I was recently mated and yet my mate and I have nowhere to record our union. We are as separate in the eyes of the records as before and yet, for us everything has changed.   
  
Renee said, nodding in what she hoped was a sympathetic way. This was another area Yulin hadn't told her much about.   
  
Are you mated, Renai? Ledah asked, her eyes still focused somewhere behind Renee.   
  
If only I was, Renee thought. Howlyn off my back and the perfect excuse to leave the Palace.   
  
Oh. Now _there_ was a thought.   
  
Renee said. I am mated.   
  
Ledah's eyes refocused on Renee's face. Another protector? My mate is. It's best that way, I think. What is his name?   
  
His name? Renee said.   
  
Oh yes, Howlyn said, his voice a dark purr from close behind her. Tell us his name.  
  
Renee forgot how to breathe.  
  
______  
  
End Part Twelve  
  
Gotta love a good cliffhanger. Next chapter out next friday, or thereabouts. I have it, it's done, but I need to run it past my unofficial, and very competent, Quality Control tester before I spring it on the helpless public. *g* (That would be you guys, in case that wasn't clear.)  
  
I dug out my E:FC clip tape yesterday - all the moments between Howlyn and Renee boiled down to an hour and a half of undiluted sexual tension. It amuses me that I can watch this under the pretext of doing 'research'. I have a good life.   
  
AKA Jay  
  
  
  



	9. Chapter Nine

Note: Okay, only one day late! One day! That's practically on time well, for me. *g* 

**Chapter Nine**  
  
Renee felt like time had stopped, the moment drawn out and stretched like a bowstring pulled tight. Howlyn was behind her. Ledah was in front of her. She didn't want to turn her back on _either_ of them.. In one movement, Renee had pivoted and taken a step back so that she stood at one corner of a triangle. To her right, Ledah. To her left, Howlyn. Behind her, an empty corridor perfect for running away. That wasn't an option.   
  
Renee didn't look at Howlyn. Couldn't. Instead, she dropped her eyes to the floor and said, "My king." Her voice barely trembled.  
  
"Howlyn," Ledah echoed her. "Have you finished greeting the first of the Five so soon?"  
  
"Formal greetings bore me, Ledah, as you well know." Howlyn said. He was watching her, Renee thought and felt heat flash through her as she thought of his eyes moving over her body.   
  
"Impatience always has been your downfall." Ledah said, hidden amusement rippling in her voice.   
  
"I have not your companion, Ledah." Howlyn said, and there was something about the way he drew out the words that made Renee think of secrets and dark places. Damn it, she thought. She wasn't going to let him do this to her again.  
  
"Really?" Ledah asked brightly. "She is one of Lord Avaren's Protectors. I was sure you must have seen each other before."   
  
"Perhaps." Howlyn said in a growl. "However, we have not been introduced."  
  
"Oh." Ledah said. "How unfortunate."  
  
Something was seriously wrong here, Renee thought. What was Ledah doing? Was it possible that she was _teasing_ Howlyn? She risked a glance over at Howlyn and saw that his hands had tightened into claws.  
  
"It is more than unfortunate." Howlyn said, his voice low and deadly. "For you."  
  
Renee took a step backwards and thought longingly of the empty corridor behind her.  
  
Ledah's laugh was wholly unexpected and Renee looked at her without thinking. Ledah was smiling, her eyes on Howlyn.  
  
"Peace, my king." Ledah said. "Renai?"  
  
Renee looked at her. She could feel Howlyn's eyes on her. Don't say it, she silently pleaded with Ledah. Ask me to leave. Order me from the castle. Just, don't -  
  
"Renai," Ledah said formally. "It is my great honour to introduce you to Howlyn, your King and our Master."  
  
Fuck, Renee thought.   
  
"Renai" Howlyn said. His voice lingered over the word, _tasting_ it, and hearing him say what was almost her name in that tone made Renee desperately wish that she'd chosen another alias.   
  
Renee had to look at him now, but she deliberately looked only at his throat. She couldn't stand to look in his eyes; she was too afraid of what she might see there.   
  
"My King, I am at your service." Renee said, completing the formal exchange.   
  
She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath.  
  
"Yes," he said. "You are."  
  
And then his hand had grasped her chin, forcing her head upwards. Their eyes met.   
  
The world fell away. His fingers _burned_ where they touched her. Fire against her skin and an inferno in his eyes. In their eyes, Renee dizzily realized, feeling the heat leap between them like a living thing. Howlyn's eyes were very dark and very close.  
  
"Howlyn," Ledah said from far away. "I believe that Renai was just about to tell us the name of her _mate_."  
  
Renee blinked and took a step back, away from Howlyn. She looked over at Ledah and saw that the other woman was wearing what could only be described as a smirk. Bless you, Renee thought fervently.   
  
Howlyn, on the other hand, looked murderous.   
  
"I" Renee said, and faltered. "I can't tell you."  
  
"Why not?" Ledah asked curiously.   
  
Renee thought fast. "The heirs of my Lord my _previous_ Lord," she clarified. "Made me swear not to disclose my association with their tribe."  
  
"Interesting." Ledah said. "And your mate is one of their remaining protectors?"  
  
"Yes." Renee said. That made sense. Right? "If I told you his name, it would be a betrayal of my oath."  
  
"You are a _loyal_ creature, aren't you." Howlyn said, and it was not a compliment. His voice was edged with something sharp and dangerous.   
  
"Of course, my king." Renee said without looking at him. "It is my nature."   
  
Renee remembered that much about Protectors, anyway. Like the Taelon companions, they were inalienably loyal to those they served. She sincerely hoped that it was bred into them and not chemically enforced. God forbid that she start wanting to protect Lord Avaren or, even worse, Howlyn.  
  
"And what of your loyalty to your king?" Howlyn said in a deceptively calm tone. "I _wish_ to know the name of your mate."  
  
Renee's lips twisted. You _wish_, she thought, to find my mate and kill him. Good luck.  
  
"I'm sorry, my king." Renee said with mock sadness, averting her eyes. "I can't tell you."  
  
"This may be a security risk, Howlyn." Ledah said. "What if Renai's mate is a known rebel?" She sounded almost serious for once.   
  
"Unlikely." Howlyn snapped.  
  
"But possible." Ledah replied just as quickly.   
  
"Perhaps I should leave the castle," Renee said quietly. "I would not want to cause problems for my Lord."  
  
"No." Ledah said.  
  
"No." Howlyn said.  
  
Damn, Renee thought. Of all the things for them to agree on.  
  
"I should leave you two alone," Renee said. "To discuss your options." She was already backing away as she spoke, staring at the ground in front of her because it was too risky to look at Howlyn.   
  
"Thank you, Renai." Ledah said, and when Renee looked at her she was smiling. "I will speak to you later."  
  
Renee nodded. "Of course. Ledah. My king." She inclined her head in farewell and turned to go.  
  
"Renai!" Howlyn's voice was harsh. Against her better judgement Renee turned back and looked at him. He was watching her intensely, and she felt something _click_ in her when their eyes met, like a light being turned on in a dark house.  
  
"At sunset tomorrow," Howlyn said in a voice that had suddenly mellowed to velvet. "At the third training ground."   
  
"My king?" Renee asked.  
  
Howlyn smiled, his teeth very white in his golden face. "You will show me how to fight with weapons, will you not?"  
  
"O- Of course, my king." Renee said, and hoped he hadn't heard the betraying stutter in her voice.  
  
Howlyn's smile widened. "Thank you, Renai. I was sure that you would not deny me _twice_."  
  
Renee swallowed hard and dropped her eyes. Nodding, she turned again and walked quickly away down the corridor. She heard nothing but silence behind her. And fought the urge to run.  
  
Renee barely remembered the walk back to her chambers. The only thing she could think of was getting a door between her and Howlyn before he and Ledah finished their conversation. He would come after her, she knew that down to her bones. He would always come after her just like she would always go after him. Renee shook the thought away.  
  
She needed help.  
  
Renee looked up at the door to Lord Avaren's suite and sighed. And turned away.  
  
It took two hours of wandering before Renee finally found it. Two hours of eyes watching her everywhere she went, two hours of holding her back ramrod straight and looking at no one. By the time Renee finally saw the console she'd been looking for, her back ached and she was jumping at shadows. But none of that mattered now.   
  
It was the work of a moment to make sure that no one was coming down any of the corridors. It took substantially longer for Renee to convince herself that this was the right thing to do.  
  
Finally, Renee stepped towards the console, her face falling into blank lines. Resting one hand on the keypad, she put the other hand over her eyes.   
  
"Contact." Renee whispered, and felt the pain in her hand like an old familiar friend. It pulsed through her in waves. She counted the waves. One two the pain died away.  
  
"All right." Renee said aloud, taking her hand away from the console. She felt tears prick at the back of her eyes and impatiently pushed them away. Two days wasn't a long time, after all. She could handle it. She could handle anything.  
  
What choice did she have?  
  
When Renee stepped inside Lord Avaren's suite, the inner doors were open. Renee approached them cautiously. Enemies, she thought. Assassins.   
  
"Renai?" Lord Avaren called from within. "Come."  
  
Renee stepped inside. The inner chamber was roughly ten times the size of her own, with a smooth floor and low ceilings but still no windows. Rough groupings of furniture were scattered around the room, and the walls were covered with glowing screens. There was no visible bed, though Renee did spot a curtained alcove.   
  
Lord Avaren was sprawled in a chair by a collection of screens that glowed dimly, reflecting faint washes of color onto his solemn face and - how did he know my _name_, Renee thought - and Juin and Kairn were standing behind him, watching her. She thought about running, but she had the sinking feeling that the main doors wouldn't open for her.  
  
Schooling her face into a neutral expression, Renee walked towards them. It seemed to take a long time to cross the room.   
  
Lord Avaren touched the pad built into the arm of his chair and Renee heard a soft whoosh from behind her as the door closed. Juin was smiling at her. Kairn was not. None of this was a good sign, Renee thought. In her mind's eye, she was already trying to figure out how to kill Lord Avaren before her fellow guards killed her. Maybe killing him would make a difference. Maybe it would be enough.  
  
"Did you want me?" Renai said to Lord Avaren, stopping in front of him. She met his cold eyes with innocence and thought about crushing his throat with her hands.  
  
"Some concerns have been raised, Renai." Lord Avaren said in an icy tone. "I can no longer allow you to keep the identity of your previous Lord from me."  
  
Howlyn, Renee thought and almost growled.   
  
"I still cannot tell you," she said simply. "I have made my oath. I will live by it."  
  
"Even if it costs you your life?" Lord Avaren asked.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Renee saw Juin start to move towards her and Kairn pull him back. Still, there was only one thing she could say.  
  
"Yes." Renee fixed the Lord with a burning gaze. "I am a Protector. I serve my Lord now, and after death."  
  
Lord Avaren's mouth tightened into a thin line. "And if your Lord was my enemy? What then?"  
  
"I will not betray my first Lord, but I serve you now, and I will not knowingly bring you harm." Renee said. She could probably kill him before Juin reached her.  
  
"Make me believe it, Renai." Lord Avaren said. "Tell me that you are not one of the rebels and make me _believe_."  
  
Renee looked him in the eye and said, "My Lord, there is _nothing_ that I want more than to stay on this planet. I will not leave here while I live." She held his gaze, trying to force him to accept the truth of her words through sheer force of will.   
  
"And if someone tries to take this planet from us," Lord Avaren said slowly. "If your mate tried to take control, who would you choose?"  
  
Damn you, Howlyn, Renee thought fiercely. No time to hesitate.  
  
"If anyone tries to take this planet from my people, I will kill them." Renee said, and meant it. Howlyn's face flickered across her mind and she said, "Even if it is my brother, even if it is my mate. This is _our_ world, not theirs."   
  
Not _yours_, Renee wanted to scream. Her lips parted in a feral snarl as she thought of the world she'd left behind and all the death that was still to come.   
  
There was a pause and she knew that she'd gone too far. They didn't believe her. Any second now Juin was going to lunge at her; she had to move first. She -  
  
Lord Avaren smiled. "I believe you."  
  
Renee barely processed the look of horror on Juin's face and Kairn's smile. She was too busy telling her muscles to unbunch, her legs to straighten, her hands to uncurl. No killing tonight, she thought, and was too strongly aware of her own disappointment.  
  
"You may go now," Lord Avaren said. "I believe you have an appointment at sunset?"  
  
"Yes, my Lord." Renee said warily.  
  
"Do not make it too easy for him," Lord Avaren said with a dry smile. "He appreciates a challenge."  
  
Not trusting herself to speak, Renee nodded and left without looking at the other guards. She didn't really mind that they'd been willing to kill her. She would have killed them first. But there was no point in seeming too forgiving, better for them to wait and worry. She smirked to herself as she entered her sleeping chamber.  
  
It took about five minutes to check that everything she'd set up had remained undisturbed. By then her smirk was just a fading memory. Renee curled up in the rose-bed and played absent-mindedly with the petals.   
  
_He appreciates a challenge_  
  
What the hell did that mean? Renee thought.   
  
Howlyn would be waiting for her when she woke up. She wasn't going to get any sleep tonight.  
  
That day, Renee dreamed.  
  
_______  
  
Tell me what you think?  
  
Man, I love the dreams. So much that it scares me. *g*  
  
(On an unrelated note, I thought I was waiting to get this back from Blue Angel turns out it was nestled happily in my Drafts folder instead. Yikes. Sorry, guys. Also, darn. I love it when I get to have things checked out first. It makes me happy. *sigh*)


	10. Chapter Ten

***  
Chapter Ten  
*** 

Renee dreamed. She dreamed of light.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
My dream is a shining thing.  
  
There's light everywhere. The light is blinding me but that's not the right word because it's not coming from anywhere but from everywhere and it doesn't hurt my eyes but I still can't see.   
  
I can move through the light but I can't escape it, can't see where I've come from or where I'm going. I can't see my own hands when I hold them up in front of me but when I curl them into fists, the nails are claws and they tear my skin like paper. The pain is a welcome certainty and I smile.  
  
My heart starts to beat faster, so fast that I think I'm going to die because I should be running, I was running and now I've stopped and it's going to be the death of me.   
  
I start running again, running straight ahead into the light and away from the light and the light comes with me and I still can't see where I'm going. I wish I could hear my footsteps because I think that I'm not really moving, just running in one spot in this blind bright place and then I do hear footsteps and they're coming from behind me and I know that it's him.  
  
I run faster because I can't let him find me I can't I can't and my heart is a pain in my chest but I can still hear his footsteps, those soft tripping footsteps like a lion in the jungle like death coming fast behind me and I can't run any faster but I do.  
  
I know he's getting closer though I can't tell why but then I realize that I can *feel* him, I feel his every move like a touch on my shoulder and his thoughts are hungry ghosts waiting for me at the edge of my mind. He's a part of me, separate but still bound up in this thing I have become, he's my hands or my claws or my heart running fast behind me.  
  
I'm terrified. More terrified than I've ever been before, except that's not true because this is how I felt when I realized that everyone I love goes away and away and away and I can never put them back together again.  
  
But now there's something up ahead and for the first time I know that I'm moving because it's getting closer. It's dark, a patch of darkness like a ragged hole cut in the light and I speed up because I'll be safe there. He wouldn't follow me there. He wouldn't dare. Do I dare?  
  
Blink and I'm there and the light is just a memory because I'm in a room built from shadows and stone and it's a room that I've been in a thousand times before. The air is warm here, warm like blood and I remember for the first time that it was terribly cold in the light. There's ice on my hair, I can feel it melt and hear its slow dripping progress to the floor. It doesn't matter now. I walk slowly across the room.  
  
His nest is where it always is, tucked safely back behind a metal door that opens automatically for me when I walk towards it. He's there, of course. I knew he would be, counted on it, because that's what will keep him from following me here. He's asleep, curled in the petals of the bed like a trusting child except that no child ever had lips like that or skin like that. Lickable skin, I think. Biteable lips and I should know.  
  
I love to watch him sleep. He's bare to the waist tonight and I wonder if he did that for me because he knows that I love the way his skin glows like amber against the black nest. It hurts something in my chest to look at him, it always does, he's so beautiful. He hates that, I know he hates it, he's forbidden me to call him beautiful on pain of death or torture.  
  
Oh he's waking up.  
  
Beautiful.  
  
He smiles, a slow inviting smile that sends heat flashing through me and stretches out his arms. Blink and I'm in the bed with him, under him, his hand is pinning my arms above my head as he licks his way down the arched column of my neck, lingering on the old marks he finds there and each little patch of scar tissue is a jolt of electricity that makes me see colours in the darkness above my head and whimper, a small lost sound that encourages him.  
  
My head is thrown back now, I'm staring blindly at the ceiling and squirming against his hands because it's not fair, not fair at all, I need to be able to use my hands and I know how his hair feels when I thread my fingers through it and I know that if I push his head down he'll take pity on me but I can't because my hands are pinned and he's so fucking good at this that I think I'm going to die and god, I love his mouth, I love his hands and if he doesn't hurry up I'm going to kill him, slice his lovely throat while he's sleeping and - ah! The light is coming.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Renee woke still in a bed and still surrounded by darkness, curled up around herself like a cat trying to stay warm, her arms wrapped painfully tight around her chest, her knees drawn up almost to her chin. She was alone, yes, surely she was alone even if she couldn't quite bring herself to look. She let out a long shaking breath.  
  
"Fuck." Renee said viciously. She was trembling, she realized, shivering like she was going to shake herself apart. She sat up and looked around her and saw nothing. It was her room, her bed. She was alone.   
  
It was just a dream, she wanted to say aloud, but Kairn and Juin were just a room away. They might hear her and she wouldn't want that. She was humanity's only hope and what she felt didn't matter. She had to keep up appearances. She should stop shaking. She definitely had to stop shaking. She couldn't stop shaking.  
  
"It's just a dream." Renee whispered into the darkness because she had to. To hell with Kairn and Juin. To hell with all of them.  
  
Letting out a long shuddering breath of air, Renee stood up. The dream would fade, she knew that. By tonight, she might even be able to sleep again. Maybe not. She stretched, bending backwards until her hands hit the floor, feeling muscles shift and crack in her shoulders. She looked at the world from an upside-down perspective and frowned.   
  
Howlyn would be waiting for her.   
  
She pulled back up to a standing position and started to stretch her arms.   
  
There was no way to get out of it, she thought. She was going to have to see Howlyn. Damn it, and she was going to see him before she had time to forget, before the memory of the dream had faded. I'm going to blush, Renee thought bitterly. I just know I am.  
  
Still, there was one benefit to this meeting. If Howlyn wanted to learn how to fight with weapons, Renee had no problem with that. It was a legitimate excuse to bash his smiling face in, to replace the memory of his hands on her skin with the memory of _her_ hands on _his_ throat.   
  
Renee smiled to herself, a small humourless smile. Oh yeah. This could be fun.  
  
"Are you awake, Renai?" Kairn said from outside the curtain.   
  
"Yes," Renee said, turning to face the curtain, her hands falling to link behind her back. "Am I required?"  
  
"It is almost time for your meeting with our King," Kairn pushed aside the curtain and looked at Renee impassively. "You will not have time to feed."  
  
"I will survive." Renee said. "I should go."  
  
Kairn nodded, stepping away from the door and letting the curtain fall back to cover it. Renee relaxed and took her hands from behind her back. She inspected them carefully. Good, she thought. They barely bled at all.  
  
A few seconds later, she stepped out of her chamber. Kairn was waiting.  
  
"The training grounds are difficult to find," he said calmly. "I will show you the way."  
  
Renee let a little amusement show on her face so that Kairn would know that she didn't really blame him for making sure. After all, it wasn't like she hadn't thought of just running away.   
  
"And if I know where they are?" She asked curiously.  
  
Kairn's face didn't change when he said, "Then you can show me how to find them."  
  
Renee fought back a smile. That was almost a joke, she thought. But it wouldn't have been funny if she _had_ been going to try and avoid Howlyn. The thought was enough to kill her smile.  
  
"All right," Renee said. "Let's go."   
  
They walked through the door together and out into the twisting pathways of the castle. Renee let Kairn take the lead. He was the senior guard, Renee was the junior guard and she really hoped that she didn't have to kill him because it was rare to find an Atavus with a sense of humour.  
  
"Where's Juin?" Renee asked as they crossed the main hallway. "Is he with our Lord?"  
  
Kairn looked at her. "Of course not," he said sternly, his eyes narrow on her face. "If our Lord needed protection, I would be with him. As would you."  
  
"Of course." Renee nodded.  
  
All right, she thought, so he doesn't have _much_ of a sense of humour. Maybe it would be all right to maim him just a little.   
  
Howlyn was waiting for her, she thought and felt tension coil in her stomach.  
  
"Juin is feeding." Kairn said. "As you should be."  
  
"No time." Renee said, trying to sound disappointed. Yeah, that would have been perfect: she could have committed ancestral homicide as a breakfast pick-me-up and then gone to Howlyn with the blood still on her hands. He would have liked that, she thought with a sudden twist of revulsion. He would have wanted to lick it off.  
  
They walked on in silence.  
  
Renee was starting to think that Kairn had something on his mind. He was making small noises as they walked, tiny almost growling sounds that she didn't think he was even conscious of making.  
  
Finally, Kairn growled low in his throat and Renee stopped walking. He walked on a few steps before he noticed that she was gone, then whirled on her with a speed more appropriate to a hunt than to a fellow guard and now Renee knew that something was wrong.  
  
"Kairn," Renee said and saw a muscle jump in his cheek. "There is something you want to tell me." It wasn't a question.  
  
Kairn focused his eyes somewhere above her head, and Renee knew that he must be really upset. That was a sign of submission, and a fairly hefty one. She could see his throat, and the pulse in his neck fascinated her. There was blood there, just under the surface. Trapped.   
  
It was just a dream, she thought. It didn't mean anything. Blood doesn't mean anything to you, and neither does Howlyn. It was just a dream.  
  
"Tell me what's wrong," Renee said quietly to Kairn. "It's all right." There, she thought, a sign of submission to balance his. They were equals, for the moment.  
  
Kairn looked at her, and there was torment in his eyes. "Our Lord has spoken highly of you to the King."  
  
"Yes?" Renee said carefully. Of course this was about Howlyn, she thought with resignation. There was no getting away from him.   
  
"If you do not impress him, it will be a mark against us." Kairn continued slowly. "And with the Meeting approaching"  
  
"It would mean that our Lord will lose ground before the debate even begins." Renee finished, feeling her stomach suddenly hollow out. "And his opinions would be worth less."  
  
She should have thought of that. But oh, how she wanted to hurt Howlyn for that dream. Damn it.  
  
"I will do my best." Renee said to Kairn. "I swear it."  
  
He looked at her steadily. "We shall see."  
  
They continued walking in silence  
.  
Thoughts tumbled through Renee's mind and it was difficult to keep her face calm and her heart beat steady. If she beat Howlyn bloody, used every trick she knew to break his bones and crush his smile, and she could and she wanted to, Lord Avaren would gain from it and humanity would lose.   
  
On the other hand, if she let Howlyn beat her, let him pin her down and touch her and fuck, god knows what he would want to do, Lord Avaren would lose status and it would be a victory for humankind. And I might die, Renee thought, before Howlyn figures out that I'm not healing.  
  
And then Kairn was leading her into a small circular room lined with doorways and it was all happening too fast because Renee still had no clue what she was going to do.   
  
Kairn nodded once to her and left without speaking. That might be his way of wishing me luck, Renee thought. Then again, maybe not.  
  
She could run for it now that he was gone, Renee thought. Except that he was probably waiting just out of sight. Except that she'd probably run into Howlyn in the corridors. Except that all of that didn't matter, she couldn't run because the memory of the dream was clinging to her like spider webs and she couldn't seem to shake it off and she couldn't run because *he would chase her*.  
  
Renee shook her head to clear it and looked for the door with the Atavus symbol for 'one' on it. She found it and then counted: one, two three. It was that one. She took a deep breath. Howlyn was waiting for her.  
  
She stepped through the door, her hands clenched at her side and he wasn't waiting for her and the room was like nothing she'd ever imagined.  
  
For starters, it was tall, taller than any other room she'd seen there: easily fifty feet high and at least the same distance wide. The top of the room disappeared into shadow, the farthest walls likewise barely visible through the gloom.   
  
Like her barracks, the room appeared to have been roughly carved out of a single monstrous block of grey stone, with no straight lines or flat surfaces anywhere.   
  
Unlike her barracks, every surface except the floor was covered with pointed bits of rock like stalagmites that had been carefully sharpened to needle sharpness. Some of them were only a few inches long, others had to be six feet long at least. There were stains on most of the spikes, dull brown blotches concentrated near the sharp tips.   
  
Renee stared at one of the longer spikes. It was all brown, all of it, right down to where it hit the wall, and there was a larger stain on the wall and the dark dried ghost of a puddle on the floor.   
  
Someone died here, Renee thought with a sick feeling in her chest. Nobody could have survived that. She couldn't stop herself from picturing a faceless stranger being pushed quickly - she hoped it had been quickly - against the spike so hard that he kept going, sliding along the spike like a bead on a string until he hit the wall-   
  
Renee flinched, and her hand went involuntarily to her stomach as she felt a twinge of pain from a wound that was never hers. Trust the Atavus, she thought, still feeling sick, to train in a room that's like a porcupine turned inside out.   
  
It would be easy to die here. Even by herself, no assistance required, if she happened to trip in the wrong place, and all her calculations about whether or not she should try to win were pointless now. She wouldn't try to win. She'd try to survive.   
  
Tearing her eyes away from the spikes with difficulty, Renee looked down and saw something glittering by her feet. It looked something like a long sword, but not quite, because the blade part was really two blades joined in the center of each. It was an interesting design, she thought, a blade with four edges, all of which looked sharp and deadly.  
  
Renee picked it up and tried an experimental slash. Nice, she thought. Good balance. She might just survive this fight after all.  
  
She heard the door open behind her.  
  
******  
  
Ah, I'm being so good with the scheduling. You know, I don't re-watch the old episodes nearly enough. They're just neat, especially for a villain fancier like me who has spent many fruitless hours staring at the TV and muttering, "No, you don't want to kill the heroine, you idiot! You want to drag her back to your lair - which by the way you should probably spruce up a little bit first, maybe some candles and roses or something - and explain to her why the two of you are destined to spend the rest of your lives in domestic bliss producing cute little morally ambiguous babies. Kiss her, kiss- I said _kiss_, damn it! Put down the knife!"   
  
Yeah, I don't appreciate Howlyn enough. *g*  
  
All comments for the last part replied to, thank you all very much! (They may take a while to show up, though.) And a special thank you to Sapphira, who carefully explained to me why I wasn't allowed to just stop this story. She made a good case. ;-)  
  
Tell me what you think?  
  
Ash


End file.
